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THE BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 
Rev. HENRY HOWARD 


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STRENGTH 


Sermons for Boys and Girls from 
a letter by St. Paul 


BY 


8, 
Rev. HENRY HOWARD 
Author of “The Threshold,’ “The Peril of Power,” ete. 
MINISTER OF THE FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY 


NEW (a0 YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


THE BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 
— A — 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


INTRODUCTION 


These junior sermons mark a distinct ad- 
vance in the development of preaching to the 
boys and girls of the church. In the first place, 
they are distinctly expository. The author has 
attempted to bring to his young congregation 
the real meaning of the passage of scripture, 
and is not satisfied by merely telling an inter- 
esting and instructive story. 

A second feature is the continuity of the 
sermons. The entire volume is based on nine 
verses from the sixth chapter of Ephesians. 
They are in the order in which Dr. Howard 
used them in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
Church, New York, beginning each week where 
he left off the week before. His success with 
this type of preaching would justify other min- 
isters in their attempt to make the children’s 
minutes in the church service a period of real 


Bible instruction. 
Wes biol. 


Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
might. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may 
be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiri- 
tual wickedness in high places. 

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of 
God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil 
day, and having done all, to stand. 

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about 
with truth, and having on the breastplate of 
righteousness ; 

And your feet shod with the preparation of the 
gospel of peace; 

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith 
ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of 
the wicked. 

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword 
of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 

Praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all 
perseverance, 


Ephesians VI: 10-18. 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


Be Strong 
The Beauty of ne 
Power to Stand . 
Cleaving Power 
Controlling Power . 
The Secret of Strength . 
The Uses of Temptation 
The Gardle . 

The Breast Plate 

The Sandals 

The Shield . 

The Helmet . 

The Sword . 

Praying . 

Watching 


21 
31 
Al 
ral 
61 
7A 
87 
99 
107 
119 
Uy, 
135 
143 
153 





7 


Be Strong 





THE 
BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 


I 


Be Strong 


This is a letter from prison, written by the 
Apostle Paul. He was in prison for doing 
what was right. You know, people used to be 
sent to prison because they were good. How 
thankful you ought to be that those times have 
passed. If they hadn’t, why, you would all be 
in prison now—perhaps! Anyhow, Paul had 
done no harm. He was put in jail for doing his 
duty. It was not the first time, either. He had 
been in several jails, once or twice in Jerusalem, 
and then at Cesarea, then again in Philippi, 
before this imprisonment at Rome. He must 
have got quite used to it by this time, and was 
now in for a two years’ term in Rome. Well, it 
was while he was a prisoner in Rome that he 


wrote this letter to the Ephesians. He was 
13 


14 The Beauty of Strength 


very fond of them, for he had spent three 
years with them; and you will see in the twen- 
tieth chapter of the Acts how very fond they 
were of him, and how broken-hearted they all 
were when they had to say good-bye. Paul 
never forgot the kindnesses that were shown 
him by the people to whom he had preached. 
He thought of them and prayed for them night 
and day, and although writing letters was not 
nearly so easy a thing as it is to-day, and send- 
ing them was harder still, he managed to send 
these beautiful letters along to help and comfort 
the friends that he loved. 

Now, you would expect a letter written in jail 
by a prisoner to his friends to be very sad. I 
have seen letters written by prisoners and they 
have been full of longing to get out. Some- 
times they have had complaints in them about 
the food, or the treatment, but very seldom, be- 
cause every letter before it comes away is care- 
fully read by one of the officers, who draws his 
pen through everything he thinks ought not 
to be written, and blots it out. Still, even when 
all the blotting out has been done, there is al- 
ways a tone of sadness and discontent about a 
jail letter that makes it anything but cheerful 


Be Strong 15 


reading to the prisoner’s friends. But if you 
read Paul’s jail letters, you will not find a single 
word of complaint. He never asks for sym- 
pathy. He never whimpers or whines. In this 
very chapter he asks the Ephesians to pray for 
him. But what for? That he may get out soon 
or have nicer food and more of it? Oh, no; 
nothing like that. But that he may be brave- 
hearted and not afraid to speak for Jesus boldly 
when he gets the chance. He is so anxious 
about other people’s happiness that he never 
thinks about his own. His joy is so full that it 
runs over and flows out like a river of comfort 
to gladden the hearts not only of those who 
lived hundreds of miles away, but also of us 
who are distant from him many hundreds of 
years. Fancy jail-letters carrying comfort 
to millions of people for nearly two thousand 
years! Why, that is the last thing that you 
would expect. You would just as soon think 
of going into a sickroom to be cheered up if 
you were down in the dumps, as to get bright- 
ened by a letter from a friend in jail. 

And yet, what do you think? I know a dear 
girl who for years and years has been lying 
on her back perfectly helpless, and often in 


16 The Beauty of Strength 


great pain. Yet her room is the brightest and 
jolliest in the whole house. She supplies the 
sunshine and good temper for all the family, 
and a good many others besides. Whenever 
any of her friends get “humpty doo,” as they 
call it, they have only to go into her room, and 
they are cured. It is like stepping into a gar- 
den on a bright spring morning when the dew 
is sparkling and the air is filled with the fra- 
grance of flowers and the music of singing 
birds. Care cannot live in that room. There 
is a light on that pale, patient face that does 
not come from the sun that you and I can see. 
But it is a light before which sorrow spreads its 
wings and flies away, complaining grows dumb, 
and sighing is turned into song. And the 
reason of it all, is just this: Jesus is there, and 
wherever He is, it is heaven. So it was with 
Paul. Wherever he went, he took Jesus with 
him, and that made all the difference. You see, 
he had not done wrong, and a clear conscience 
and a clean heart will turn the darkest dungeon 
into a drawing-room. But the most beautiful 
palace becomes a stifling prison when con- 
science has been wronged and the heart is sick 
with sin. Paul had gone to prison for Christ’s 


Be Strong 17 


sake, and so Christ went to prison for Paul’s 
sake, putting peace in his mind and joy in his 
heart and songs on his lips. 

But I must not forget to tell you that Paul 
was never left by himself, either when he was 
in the prison or while he was taking his exercise. 
Always, night and day, sleeping and waking, 
he was chained by the wrist to a Roman guard. 
Every three hours the guard was relieved, and 
another took his place. 

Now, I think it was seeing these guards every 
day, as well as others, who would be standing 
sentry at their different posts, that made Paul 
think and speak so much about strength and 
armour. You must remember that these Roman 
soldiers were splendidly made men. They were 
pretty well all muscle. They could box and 
fence and wrestle and run. When they were 
off duty they spent most of their time in the 
gymnasium, so that they were always fit and in 
form. 

Now, Paul would often get talking to these 
men, and get them to talk to him about the 
countries they had seen, and the battles they 
had fought. When you get him in the mood, 
which however is not often, a soldier will thrill 


18 The Beauty of Strength 


you with stories about the wars through which 
he has passed. Men who have been through the 
Great War have wonderful experiences to 
relate, and I have listened all night to tales of 
hair-breadth escapes amid hissing bullets and 
screaming shells. And so Paul would get quite 
interested as his different guards would tell 
him how with the sword they had smitten down 
this foe and that, or turned the weapons of 
others with their trusty shields, or, it may be, 
received this scar or lost that finger through un- 
watchfulness or want of skill. And there were 
the very swords that had done the deeds, and 
the very shields battered and dented with the 
shocks of war. What wonder that Paul 
thought of other battles that had to be waged, 
of right against wrong, of truth against false- 
hood, of light against darkness, and then of 
that other armour and that other sword with 
which alone those battles could be fought! 
How he turned his Roman guards, with their 
helmets and boots, their swords and shields, 
into texts for sermons to his Ephesian friends, 
you will see as you read. 


I] 


The Beauty of Strength 





II 
The Beauty of Strength 


“Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His 

might.” 
EPHESIANS vl. I10 

Be Strong! Why, that’s what every boy 
wants. I do not know much about girls, but, 
from what I do know, it would seem that they 
mostly want to be beautiful, rather than strong. 
Of course, there is a sort of strength in beauty, 
but it is not the kind that can lift heavy weights, 
and go long journeys without feeling tired. 
Beauty generally gets other people to do these 
things for it. Indeed, it is just wonderful how 
much a boy will do for a pretty girl, even if 
she is not his sister, and just because she is 
pretty! | 

But it is not about the strength of beauty that 
I want to speak. It is about the beauty of 
strength. Some other day we may have a talk 


about the other thing, and then as girls are 
2! 


22 The Beauty of Strength 


very fond of recipes, I will try and give you one 
for making the very plainest face beautiful, 
with a beauty that no age can wither, and no 
power destroy. 

Every boy then longs to be strong. He looks 
forward impatiently to the time when he will 
be as strong as his father so as to cut all the 
wood for his mother, and carry all the parcels 
for his sister. If there is one thing more than 
another that grieves a boy, it is to see his sister 
carrying her own parcels, or, when his father is 
away from home to hear his mother chopping 
wood. It is lovely to be strong, to be able to 
climb high mountains, and swim broad rivers, 
and take long walks without knowing what it 
is to feel tired. But it is a wretched thing to 
feel weak, and to see other fellows doing things 
that you can’t do. Sometimes a boy of this 
kind comes down to the football ground, look- 
ing very pale and thin. He walks about very 
slowly watching the fellows practise. His eye 
brightens, and his breath comes fast with ex- 
citement, as he watches the rough and tumble 
of the game, in which he is too shaky to take 
part. Now and then some big strong fellow, 
who “makes a mark,” gives him the ball and 


The Beauty of Strength 23 


lets him have a kick. He feels half ashamed of 
the weakness which makes the fellows so kind 
to him, but he takes the kick all right, and 
smiles back his thanks. All the same though, 
he wishes he were strong enough to earn his 
own kicks, instead of getting them on the 
cheap. 

If you have ever been sick, you will perhaps 
remember what a delicious thing it was to feel 
yourself getting stronger every day. Have you 
ever had the measles? I have. I was always 
reckoned a very slow boy at our school, but I 
was fast enough to catch the measles. The 
doctor came and said that I must stay in bed, 
and that the room must be kept dark, and a 
ereat many other things that I forget, but I do 
remember that I had a very good time. I got 
things to eat and drink during measles that I 
never got any other time, and then, best of all, 
there were no lessons to learn, no exercises to 
do, and no maps to draw; so that I felt inclined 
to say “good old measles!’ But one day came, 
when the doctor pulled up the blind, and after 
he had looked at me, I heard him say, “He may 
get up to-day.” Wasn't I glad! I heard him 
and mother going downstairs, so I thought I 


24 The Beauty of Strength 


would get up straight away, and put on my 
things. 

Nothing could be easier, so slipping out of 
bed I made for the middle of the room, when 
the funniest thing happened that you ever knew. 
Everything in the room commenced to run rings 
round me, they all seemed so glad to see me 
better, and able to get up. The washstand 
chased the dressing-table, and the dressing- 
table ran after the chest of drawers, and even 
the solemn looking old bed, which was always 
as steady as a rock, frisked round like a kitten 
after a string. Just when I was in the middle 
of enjoying all the fun, the ceiling seemed to 
fall with a crash, and the floor jumped up with 
a bang, everything got suddenly dark, and the 
show was over! The next thing that I knew 
was lying in the bed, which had settled down 
again to its old quiet ways. Then they told 
me that I had fainted through weakness, and 
that all this had happened because I was not 
strong enough to get out of bed myself. 

Very soon they fixed me up, and carried me 
downstairs. They sat me out in the sunshine, 
where I could see the fowls in the back yard, 
and hear the birds singing in the trees. Then, 


The Beauty of Strength 25 


by and by, they sent me away into the country 
to stay at a farm, and it was just lovely always 
to have one’s pockets full of apples, to fish 
for eels and blackfish in the creek, to tumble 
about among the new-mown hay, to have bread 
and cream and honey a dozen times a day, 
and best of all, to feel oneself growing stronger 
almost every hour. Who wouldn’t be strong! 

But what is the use of telling people to be 
strong as though they could if they liked? No- 
body would be weak if they could help it, and it 
seems a cruel thing to talk about strength to a 
weak man, and to fill him up with discontent. 
What would you think of anyone who would go 
to a hospital and walk up and down between 
the rows of white beds and pale faces saying, 
“Now then, be strong! Look at me how strong 
I am, what are you lying in bed for? Get up 
and jump round!’ I don’t know how you 
would feel but I would like to punch a fellow’s 
head who talked like that. And what would the 
patients feel? Why it would hurt them almost 
as much as did the doctor’s knife. 

It is always a cruel thing to taunt people with 
their weaknesses. No true gentleman or lady 
ever does. If a gentleman happened to meet a 


26 The Beauty of Strength 


cripple in the street, he would not seem to see 
his crutches or in any way hurt his feelings 
for the world, by appearing to notice his lame- 
ness. Although all the time he is just aching 
with sympathy for him, he smiles cheerfully as 
though nothing was the matter, and puts him 
perfectly at his ease. As to reminding him of 
his trouble or mocking him by rallying words to 
be strong and fling away his crutches, he would 
rather die than be so mean. Now Paul, who 
wrote the words of our text, was a gentleman, 
and if the people to whom he wrote had been 
weak in body, he never would have written in 
the way he did. But this was not their trouble. 
They were a very hearty lot of folk—a strong, 
busy, hard-working and money-making people. 
They were rich and powerful in many ways. 
They had a lovely city on the seashore. Ships 
were always coming and going to and from 
their harbour, heavily laden with beautiful silks 
of all colors, stacks of sweets of every kind— 
figs and dates, almonds and raisins—dainties 
and wines. If you could only have seen them 
when this letter was being written, buying and 
selling in their bazaars, jostling one another in 
their markets, gossiping in the streets, or play- 


The Beauty of Strength 27 


ing in the games, you would have thought that 
they were going quite strong enough for any- 
thing and that there was no need for Paul to 
urge them to be strong. 

But it was just because Paul had been living 
with them for so long and because he had 
mixed up with the crowd and knew them all 
perhaps better than they knew themselves; be- 
cause he knew that they fancied themselves with 
all their money and their power, and although 
strong in body and in brain they had not 
strength to say “No” when a temptation had te 
be faced, or “Yes” when a duty had to be done, 
that he told them to “Be strong.” 

This is the kind of strength that we all need, 
and unlike the physical power of which we have 
been speaking, it can be had for the asking. It 
may be no fault of yours if you are weak in 
body, you may not always be able to help that, 
though sometimes of course it may be brought 
about by your own practice or neglect, but you 
can always help being too weak to say “Yes” 
to what is right and “No” to what is wrong. 

Now, if you will look at the text again you 
will see that there are three words here which 
mean pretty much the same thing: “Strong,” 


28 The Beauty of Strength 


“Power,” “Might.” If I said of a man that 
he was “strong,” and then that he was “pow- 
erful,” and then again that he was “mighty,” 
you would very likely say, “Well, you have said 
the same thing about that man three times, al- 
though each time you have used a different 
word.” That is true about these three English 
words, but this letter was not written in Eng- 
lish, but in Greek. ~ Behind these three English 
words that mean nearly the same thing there 
are three Greek words that mean very different 
things. There are really three kinds of power 
spoken of in this verse, Power to stand, Power 
to cut your way through difficulty and Power 
to hold your power under fine control. It is 
about these that I want to speak to you, be- 
cause I want you to build up an all-round man- 
hood and womanhood that will enable you to 
stand in the evil day, and having done all, “to 
stand.” Every boy has his own temptation, 
and so has every girl. If you are going to get 
it under your feet instead of letting it get you 
underneath its, you must know what it means 
to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of 
His might.” 


[I 


Power to Stand 





Ill 


Power to Stand 


First of all then you want the power to 
“stand.” You have seen the great cliffs on the 
sea-coast, that lift themselves up so grandly for 
hundreds of feet above the shore, and look out 
so fearlessly across the waves, as if scorning 
their power, and challenging them to do their 
worst. Let us suppose that some afternoon the 
wind and the sea get talking together, and that, 
like some people we know, instead of speaking 
kindly of others, they talk against them, behind 
their backs. 

Presently the wind says, “Have you ever 
noticed the bold look on that cliff? It does not 
seem to care for anything! It has been star- 
ing out here for I don’t know how many thou- 
sand years, as much as to say:— ‘Well, here I 
am, and here I am going to stay till all the 
foundations of the earth give way.’ ”’ 

“Oh, yes,” says the sea, “I know all about 


it. I’m iust sick and tired of its stubborn, 
31 


32 The Beauty of Strength 


solid look. And then it is so proud, too! . If 
there is one thing I hate in this world more 
than another, it is pride.” 

“Vou are quite right there,” says the wind, 
“and if you will just listen a moment, I have 
a suggestion to make.”’ So the sea curls its ear 
round to catch what the wind has to say, for, 
I am sorry to tell you, the sea always listens to 
the wind, and does: whatever it says; and, as 
the wind is always changing its mind, the sea 
and those who use it, never know what is go- 
ing to happen next. 

“Now, if you are listening,” says the wind, 
and it died down to a whisper, “if you like, 
we will work together to-night, and put an end 
to the cliff. I will come along just after dark, 
and we will give the whole night to the job. 
Then, in the morning, we will see whose turn 
it is to look proud.” 

Of course the sea was just delighted, and 
found it almost impossible to keep calm with 
such a secret locked up in her breast. However, 
she waited till the sun went down, and kept 
herself all ready for the wind. By and by he 
came, and the great waves, like giant horses, 
arched their necks at his coming, and lent them- 


Power to Stand 33 


selves to his might, and all night long he drove 
them with thundering crash against the poor 
old cliff. But what did the cliff do? Why! he 
never moved. He just stood there smiling, 
and did not even trouble so much as to wipe 
his face. By and by, when the sun rose, there 
he stood, majestic as ever, “his brave brows 
brightening through the grey, wet air.” But 
where were his enemies? Why the waves were 
smashed into millions of atoms, and churned 
up into foam, and you might have seen and 
heard them hissing and squirming like a lot of 
broken-backed serpents at his feet; while, as 
for the wind, it was a hundred miles away, 
snorting with disappointment, and taking its 
revenge by blowing the hats off little boys’ 
heads, and turning old ladies’ umbrellas inside 
out. 

But what was the secret of the cliff’s vic- 
tory? Just this, he knew how to stand. His 
feet reached deeply down into the living rock, 
and he could fearlessly lift up his forehead to 
the sky. This, then, is the first kind of power 
you need. Temptation will come up against 
you, sometimes like a mighty flood, and your 
feet must be firmly fixed on the “Rock of Ages,” 


34 The Beauty of Strength 


if you are to withstand its shock and hurl it 
back broken and destroyed. 

It is a dreadful feeling to have no foothold, 
Sometimes at places where there is a very strong 
undertow, as it is called, bathers find it very 
difficult to get back to shore. They try to stand, 
but the outrunning current sucks away their 
feet, and drags on to their legs, so that they 
have to fight for bare life, digging their toes 
into the shifting sand, or else be swept clear 
out to sea. 

But when Paul said, “Be strong,” and then 
went on to speak about “standing,” he was 
thinking of a wrestling match. If you look at 
the chapter from which the text is taken, you 
will see that he goes on to speak in the next verse 
but one about wrestling. This was a thing that 
he had seen a great deal of. He must have 
been very fond of watching the games when a 
boy, because he so often speaks of them in his 
letters. The Greeks and Romans of his time 
were great wrestlers, and would train for ten 
months of the year before a match. They be- 
came very strong, and their muscles stood out 
all over their bodies in rolls and ridges. If you 
go into almost any sculpture gallery you will 


Power to Stand 35 


see statues in marble of the Greek and Roman 
athletes. There is one splendid piece called 
“The Wrestlers,” which you ought to see the 
next time you go. Now, the great thing in 
wrestling is to keep on your feet. I have seen 
two prize wrestlers struggling with each other, 
and their feet seemed glued to the floor. They 
seemed to grip the boards with their toes. This 
requires very great strength; but it also re- 
quires knowledge. There is a trick in it that 
it is not my business to explain in a talk like 
this, but a wrestler must know it, and do it, to 
win. You should see how two wrestlers watch 
one another, lest either should gain the ad- 
vantage, and trip the other up. 

Now, Paul says, “Be strong,” because “we 
wrestle.” Every boy, and every girl too, has 
been entered for a wrestling match. There is 
no escape. Everyone must come into close grip 
with the enemy, and either throw or be thrown. 
This is why Paul keeps on saying “stand’”’ so 
many times within so short a space. He uses 
the word four times in three verses. It is the 
one important thing which, if we forget all 
else, we must remember. 

But he goes on to tell us that there is one 


36 The Beauty of Strength 


great disadvantage which we suffer in this 
struggle, and that is, that while our enemy can 
see us, we cannot see him. We have to wrestle 
with an unseen foe. Why, it generally takes a 
boy all his time to win a fight, even when he 
can see the other fellow. But just fancy hav- 
ing to fight someone that you can neither see 
nor feel. What chance would you have? and 
how would you know how the thing was going, 
and whether you were getting the best or worst 
of it? 

I remember a fight that I had when about 
twelve years old. I did not “owe it” to the other 
fellow, and he had nothing against me that I 
knew of. But then, there hadn’t been a fight 
at the school for a long time, and that was felt 
to be a bit of a disgrace. So some of the bigger 
boys arranged that two of us should perform 
for the honor of the school. We agreed, and 
on the following afternoon we gathered on a 
green. The two of us which were selected 
slipped off our coats and vests, that we might 
the more easily punch one another for the sake, 
as we foolishly thought, of the school’s good 
name. All the fellows stood round us in a ring, 
and told us to “go to it.” After a time we just 


Power to Stand 37 


followed one another watchfully round and 
round with a gentle sparring movement, and at 
a quite safe distance. This, however, did not 
satisfy the ring. It wasn’t what they had come 
for. They wanted to see some “fun,” as they 
called it, and closing in upon us, they forced us 
to close in upon each other. Presently, I got a 
surprise, and upon recovering from it, my left 
eye, which was in good working order a mo- 
ment before, seemed too big for its socket. 
While I was thinking about this my nose sud- 
denly required attention; and altogether, what 
with a singing in my ears, and a sort of “tired 
feeling” all over, it seemed time to go home and 
feed the fowls. 

Just then, however, I saw with a thrill that 
the other fellow began to look damaged, and his 
nose began to bleed, and his lip began to swell 
and quiver. The sight of this filled me with a 
strange joy. I forgot my own troubles, and, 
romping in, I won that fight in the next round. 

Now, that all this was very wicked, I need not 
remind you. I only tell it to you that you may 
see what an advantage a boy has in fighting 
when he can see his foe. I was just giving in, 


38 The Beauty of Strength 


because I was getting the worst of it, when 
really I was on the road to victory. 

And so it has often happened, in our struggle 
against sin. If we had only held out a little 
longer, instead of losing heart, we should have 
taken a clean fall out of our adversary, and got 
him under our feet. 


IV 


Cleaving Power 


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IV 


Cleaving Power 


We have spoken about the power of “‘stand”’; 
we are now going to discuss the subject of 
“cleaving power,’ or the “power to cut your 
way through difficulty.” 

Perhaps some of you thought that there was 
not much in just being able to stand. But, after 
all, it is the man who shows himself able to 
“withstand in the evil day, and having done all 
to stand,” that will surprise you by the power 
to cut and cleave that he has thus made his own. 
Years ago there were anchored in the beautiful 
harbor of Samoa quite a number of German 
warships, and other vessels together with an 
English man-of-war, the “Calliope,” com- 
manded by Captain Kane. Suddenly there were 
signs of a coming storm. So fiercely did the 
wind blow that the only safety for the ships 
was to get out of the harbor, and make for the 
open sea. This they tried to do, but before the 


German vessels could get under way, they were 
41 


42 The Beauty of Strength 


flung high and dry upon the shore, where they 
cracked like walnuts on the rocks. But the 
grand old “Calliope” stood out with her nose in 
the very teeth of the gale. It blew so hard that, 
although her engines were working at full speed 
ahead, she never made a single inch for a solid 
hour. She just stood still against the awful 
tempest, measuring all her splendid strength 
against the force -of the hurricane, with her 
pistons plunging, and her screw whirring and 
all her pulses throbbing as if her heart would 
break with the strain. Fora full hour she kept 
this up, without moving an inch forward, but 
she never moved back! She just stood. Then, 
gradually, she forged ahead just a shade, then 
a little more, till by and by she steamed victori- 
ously out till even the doomed and drifting Ger- 
mans could not keep back a cheer. 

Now, it was because the “Calliope” was able 
to ‘‘stand” through the black blast of that aw- 
ful hour, that she saved herself and all on 
board. There will come times in your lives 
when you will be able to do nothing more than 
simply stand against the forces of evil. But to 
stand in such a case will mean what it meant in 
the case of the “Calliope.” You will be able 


Cleaving Power A3 


to forge ahead and not only save yourselves, 
but others too. Now, it is this power to forge 
ahead that we have to deal with to-day. You 
have often seen a football match. Of course, it 
is a fine thing to be able to stand in football. 
Sometimes you will see a player cleverly take 
the ball, and make a run for goal. Just then 
one of the other side comes tearing across the 
field with all his might to upset him and get 
the kick. But the holder of the ball sees him 
coming, and just at the right moment gathers 
himself together, digs his heels into the ground, 
ducks his head, stiffens his shoulder, and just 
stands. The next thing you see is the other 
fellow bouncing off him like a tennis ball, and 
tucking himself up on the ground as if he were 
trying to sit on his head some twenty feet away. 
But, then, no football match was ever won 
by fellows who only knew how to stand. A 
player needs the power to cut his way through 
all difficulties, and plant the ball between the 
posts. And so, in the great battle of life, we 
need power, not only to stand, but to cleave, and 
cut, and thrust our way through every foe. 
You have heard of dynamite. It is one of 
the most powerful explosives known. It can 


A4 The Beauty of Strength 


burst and blast its way through anything. Or- 
dinary gunpowder is very powerful, but it is 
only a baby compared to dynamite. If you 
were to put a pound of gunpowder on the top 
of a rock and fire it, it would only puff off in 
smoke, and leave the rock unhurt. But if you 
put a very much smaller quantity of dynamite 
there, and let it off, it would go down through 
the rock and shatter it into atoms. It is not 
afraid of difficulty or resistance. It rather likes 
it. Gunpowder chooses the easiest direction in 
which to explode. Dynamite goes every way at 
once. 

Now, this word “dynamite” is not English, 
but Greek. It means “power.” It is one of the 
words for power used by Paul in our text. 
“Dynamite” is what Christ promised to His dis- 
ciples before He left them. He knew all the 
resistance they would meet, the enemies that 
would attack them, and all the forces of evil 
with which they would have to struggle, and so 
He said to them, in Acts i.8: “Ye shall receive 
power (dynamite), after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you.” That meant victory for 
them all along the line. 

If you have ever been down a mine you will 


Cleaving Power A5 


have seen the awful difficulties that the miners 
have to conquer that they may get the gold. 
Sometimes they are up against a solid face of 
rock, as hard as iron, and they must get 
through. You would wonder how they could 
ever manage it. But if you asked them, they 
would only smile, and say “Dynamite!” That 
is the magic power that can rend and tear its 
way through granite gates that try in vain to 
guard the yellow metal from the hand of man. 
You remember the story of Ali Baba and the 
forty thieves in the ‘Arabian Nights,” and how, 
when he whispered “Open Sesame,” the door 
suddenly flew back, and all its wonderful 
wealth was at his hand. Now dynamite is the 
“open sesame” that flings back all the great 
doors which guard the gold, and silver, and 
precious stones that fill the treasure caves of 
earth. It does not matter even if it is a moun- 
tain that has to be removed, it is all the same to 
dynamite as if it were a doll’s house. 

Very often, in preparing the track for a rail- 
way, and making it straight, mountains have to 
be pierced and cut in two. But this is as easy 
to dynamite as falling off a bike is to you. 
When the workman has plenty of dynamite, 


46 The Beauty of Strength 


he does not care how many difficulties lie in 
his way. The more the merrier. He is con- 
fident of success, because he is certain of his 
power. 

Now, this is the second kind of power we all 
need. The power to “prepare the way of the 
Lord, and to make His paths straight.” The 
prophet tells us that “every mountain and hill 
shall be laid low, that the crooked shall be made 
straight, and the rough places smooth.” All 
this means that there are difficulties to be over- 
come and enemies to be conquered, and to do 
this we are in need of power. We want power, 
not only to stand, but to cut our way through all 
opposition, and put to flight the foes of God 
which, of course, are our foes too. Intemper- 
ance, gambling, and all the black host which, 
under their captain, the Prince of Darkness, 
are fighting against the Kingdom of God. 

There is simply no end to the power we may 
have just for the asking, to fight the battles of 
God. The more we ask the better will God be 
pleased. But, remember, it must be used, we 
cannot keep it stored. If you don’t use it, you'll 
lose it. It must be spent to be kept. This 
sounds wrong; but it is right just the same. Of 


Cleaving Power 47 


course, if you have a dollar and spend it you 
have not got it, but if you have power for the 
service of God and spend it, you increase it. 
Suppose now, you take your dollar to a shop 
and ask for a dollar’s worth of chocolate 
creams, and when you put your money down 
you get a pound of chocolates and two dollars in 
change! “My word,” you say, “that is a store 
I would like to deal at.”” Well, that is the sort 
of store that God keeps. If you go on spending 
the power He gives you in working for Him, 
He will keep on doubling it. But if you do not 
use it up He will take it away. The only way 
to make it last is by using it up as fast as you 
can in battling for the truth. God wants sol- 
diers. Now, when a country wants soldiers, it 
offers them all they want to eat, and drink, and 
wear, as well as giving them a place to live in, 
but it cannot offer them strength. They must 
come supplied with that, and without it they 
are of no use to their country. That is why 
those in authority always pick the strongest 
men, and reject the weak ones. Now, our Cap- 
tain never rejects recruits because they are not 
strong. Christ invites the weak; indeed, some- 
times He prefers them, and uses them to con- 


48 The Beauty of Strength 


found the mighty because they trust more fully 
in His power, instead of relying on their own. 
All we have to do is to come just as we are in 
all our weakness, and He supplies the power 
to conquer the demon within and the foes with- 
out. Isaiah tells us that “He giveth power to 
the faint; and to them that have no might He 
increaseth strength.” It does not matter then 
in the least how weak you feel you are, Christ 
will enrol you, and make you wise to know, and 
strong to do His will. He has a wonderful way 
of coming into lives, and doing things through 
them that they could not have done by them- 
selves. But that this may happen, we must lay 
our lives open to Jesus Christ. He will not 
come in uninvited, but waits at the door of 
every life. If you will but open He will enter, 
and make you strong in His might. When He 
tells you to be strong, He means to make you 
strong, for a command of His becomes a prom- 
ise when we make up our minds to obey. 


V 


Controlling Power 





V 


Controlling Power 


Text: “Be strong in the Lord,’ etc. 
EPHESIANS vi. 10 

But there is a third kind of power which you 
need, and wuich is quite as important as either 
of the two we have already named. You have 
seen that you need power to “stand,” and power 
to ‘‘cleave’’; but power to cleave may do more 
harm than good, if not rightly guided and con- 
trolled. Power is a very dangerous thing un- 
less properly managed. It is not enough for 
us to have great force. The important thing is 
how we are using it. It makes all the difference 
whether a keg of dynamite is in the hands of a 
wise man or a fool. 

If you were going to let off a gun, the most 
important thing would be the direction in which 
it was pointed. Suppose you were not sure as 
to which end it would go off, whether at the 
breech or at the muzzle; how would you like to 


handle it? It would be no use telling you not 
51 


52 The Beauty of Strength 


to be afraid because the charge in the gun was a 
very powerful one. You would say at once 
that the very powerfulness of the charge was 
what made you afraid, and unless you were 
quite sure of the direction in which it would 
explode, you would rather leave it alone. The 
direction, then, in which power is used, is 
the most important thing. There are some men 
who have every power but the power rightly to 
direct and control their power. Such men work 
more mischief than good. Of course, power, 
as you have been already told, must be used; 
but it must not be spilt about and wasted. The 
greatest care must be taken against spending 
it for nothing. This is the mistake that a lot 
of people make. They are always busy; but 
then they are busy about the wrong thing, or 
at the wrong time, or else in the wrong way. 
They have any amount of power, but it is not 
rightly used. I saw a horse the other day, and 
he had any amount of power to pull a buggy- 
load of people, but he was putting it all into 
his hind legs and using it up in kicking out 
the dash-board, and smashing up things gen- 
erally. The horse-power was there all right, 
but it was not under control, and was going to 


Controlling Power 53 


waste, through being delivered at the wrong 
end. But it was not only wasteful, it was dan- 
gerous, 

Power is always a dangerous thing unless 
under proper direction. What is it that makes 
men settle themselves so comfortably in a rail- 
way carriage, and read their papers, or tuck 
themselves round with rugs, and go to sleep 
with such a feeling of safety. Certainly not 
the thought of the tremendous power of the 
engine on in front; but the thought that all that 
power is so carefully and cleverly managed by 
the driver, who holds his hand on the lever that 
the whole train can be brought up standing in 
less than its own length. Let someone tell a 
carriageful of dozing travellers when the en- 
gine is plunging forward at the rate of sixty 
miles an hour that there is neither a driver nor 
a fireman on the footplate, and that the engine is 
going entirely on its own, and there will be no 
more dozing. In the place of comfort there 
will be at once the wildest and whitest terror, 
and desperate leaps for life from every door. 
So you see that something more than going 
power is needed; slowing power is wanted too. 
It really is better to have no power at all than 


54 The Beauty of Strength 


not to have it well in hand. If I were to ask 
you to name the most important thing in a 
watch, you would most likely say the main- 
spring; but this would be quite a mistake. It is 
perfectly true that the mainspring supplies the 
working power of the watch, but that power 
has to be kept in check if it is to tick off the 
seconds correctly and measure the minutes and 
hours. 

Now the little thing that does this is called the 
“balance-wheel,’ and it is far and away the 
most important part of the watch. It controls 
the power of the spring, and measures that 
power off in equal beats. If you hold a watch to 
your ear you will notice how evenly it ticks. 
Now, if it were not for the balance-wheel, there 
would be no regularity, and the watch would 
be useless for telling the time. 

From all this I want you to see how impor- 
tant it is, not only that you should have power, 
but that it should always be under control, and 
wisely guided. It is this third kind of power 
we need if we are going to be what God wants 
us to be and do what He wants us to do. If 
you possess this power, you will be saved from 
wasting your strength. Such a lot of strength 


Controlling Power 55 


goes to waste through not being under proper 
control. There are some horses which, if not 
held in firmly when driven, will knock them- 
selves up in a few miles, but which, if properly 
handled, will travel all day, and finish at night 
as fresh as paint. Now, there are men like that 
who do not live half their days, because they 
wear themselves out through badly managing 
their strength. Then again, if you have this 
kind of power, you will be saved from going 
just by fits and starts. You will be more even 
in your going, like a watch, and other fellows 
will be able to look at you, and regulate their 
lives by yours. One good clock in a town fixes 
the time for all the rest, and one good life 
makes the pace for other lives. Here, then, 
there are these three kinds of power,—stand- 
ing power, cleaving power, and controlling 
power,—and you need them all. But the ques- 
tion is where are you to find them, and the text 
gives you the answer, “In the Lord.” You are 
to be strong ‘in Christ.” 

But, some boy says, “How can I be strong in 
someone else?” Why, easily! Here is a fellow 
comes in from school, and flings his books 
down, when his mother, hearing him, calls out 


56 The Beauty of Strength 


“George! I want you to go a message for me 
to the post office.” But George remembers that 
there is a fellow down by the post office that 
“owes it to him,” and threatened the next time 
he came that way he would thump his nose. 
Of course he does not want to go, and suggests 
that his sister shall be sent instead. But his 
mother says that he must go himself. Now, 
it would take only five minutes to go to the post 
office from George’s house by the shortest cut. 
But that would lead straight past this fellow’s 
gate, and as he is not game to meet him because 
he is not strong enough to fight, he must track 
round by the back streets and take a quarter 
of an hour. But next day George’s big brother 
is going to the post office, and he calls out 
“George! George! I am going down the town; 
would you like to come?” Oh yes, George 
wants to go; what boy doesn’t want to go with 
his big brother? But, then, he has to go right 
past that fellow’s house. Well, what of that? 
He has got his brother with him now. He has 
confidence in his brother. He knows that all 
his brother’s strength, and all his brother’s 
walking stick too, will be on his side if any one 
tries to touch him. And so he walks on cheer- 


Controlling Power 57 


fully. He would like to meet the other fellow 
now, just to let him see how strong he is. And 
sure enough just as they turn the corner, there 
he is swinging on his gate. But George just 
slips his hand into his brother’s and pulls a face 
at the boy as much as to say: “Come on now 
if you dare,” and he wishes that he would. 

Now Christ is your Elder Brother. In Him 
you can do all things and need not be afraid of 
anything or anyone. Just slip your hand into 
His, and walk with Him along your way, and 
you will be able to laugh to scorn the Devil’s 
power while by your Saviour’s side. 








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The Secret of Strength 


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VI 
The Secret of Strength 


For three or four chapters we have been 
speaking of “‘power,”’ and you have seen that if 
you are to stand against temptation, and put 
it under your feet, Jesus Christ must come into 
your life. This is the very thing He wants to 
do. The door through which He comes is your 
will, and that door must be opened by you. If 
ever we are beaten by temptation it just serves 
us right; for the power to win is at our door, 
knocking and asking to come in. 

But if you say, “We do not understand how, 
by just saying, ‘I will’ to Jesus Christ, He can 
come into our lives, and make us strong!’ No 
more do I, but that does not matter as long as 
He does it. When you come in hungry from 
school and your mother cuts you a thick slice 
of bread and butter, you do not say, “I will not 
eat this till I understand how taking this food 
into my mouth and then swallowing it takes 


away my hunger, and makes me feel strong.” 
61 


62 The Beauty of Strength 


You just eat it and ask no questions as to 
“How.” And even if someone explained the 
whole thing to you, the bread and butter would 
not do you a bit more good. If you never took 
any more food till you understood how it got 
turned into strength of body and mind you 
would very soon starve. Sometimes people take 
it into their heads that they will not eat, and 
doctors have to pump food into them to keep 
up their strength. But then such people are 
mad, and cause great grief and anxiety to their 
friends. Now it is just as mad a thing to keep 
Christ out of our lives because we cannot un- 
derstand how His coming in makes us strong. 
Those who have let Him in know that He does 
it; and they do not bother. about the “how.” 
One day I was invited to join a party of 
about thirty doctors to watch a professor of 
mesmerism perform some of his wonderful 
feats. The professor had invited the doctors 
to a private exhibition of his power. We all 
gathered round him in a ring, and he took four 
men who gave themselves up to his will. The 
first thing he did was to “will” them to go to 
sleep, and in an instant they were all in the 
land of dreams. The profesor then told the 


The Secret of Strength 63 


doctors that they might examine them to see 
whether they were ‘‘shamming” or not. So Dr, 
Neild, one of the cleverest and most honorable 
of Melbourne doctors, tested them one after the 
other, and declared them to be truly asleep. 
After this the professor “willed” that they 
should feel no pain, no matter what was done 
to them. Then he took a long darning needle 
threaded with coarse thread, and, drawing out 
the tongue of the first man, as he lay upon the 
floor, he put the needle clean through it, and 
drew the thread through, with which he then 
bobbed the man’s head up and down on the 
platform. It looked a very cruel and painful 
thing; but the professor told us that the man 
felt nothing, and when the doctors examined 
him, and felt his pulse, they said it was per- 
fectly true. After doing quite a number of 
very wonderful things that I have not time to 
tell you of now, he took one of the men and 
“willed” him to be stiff. He then got two of the 
doctors to lift him up and put the back of his 
head on the back of one chair, and his heels on 
the back of another, so that he was stretched 
out between the two chairs like a log of wood. 
If you try to put yourself in such a position 


64 The Beauty of Strength 


you will find how hard it is. Well, he not only 
made him bear himself up in that position, but 
he asked one of the heaviest doctors present to 
come and sit astride him. A well-known doc- 
tor stepped out and sat across his waist. The 
weight made the man arch downwards like the 
letter C on its back. But then the most won- 
derful thing happened. The professor just 
stood and spread his hands over the head of 
the doctor, as he sat there, and slowly but surely, 
before our eyes, the man arched up like the 
letter C on its face, with the heavy doctor on 
him all the while! Somehow, the strength of 
the professor passed into the man, and made 
him strong. How, nobody could tell. The doc- 
tors asked the professor how he did it, and he 
confessed that it was all a mystery to him, and 
that he had asked them, as clever men, to come 
and explain it if they could. They all gave it 
up. But there was no denying it, for they had 
seen it with their own eyes, and touched it 
with their own hands. In some way that can- 
not yet be explained, the professor’s strength 
entered through the door of their will into 
these men’s bodies, so that they were able to do 
what, without him, would have been impossible. 


The Secret of Strength 65 


Now, how Jesus Christ can so come into our 
lives and make us do what would be otherwise 
impossible I cannot tell you. But He does it 
in thousands of lives every day, that just give 
up their wills to His, and He will do it for you 
if you will let Him. Unless you do, you have 
no chance of success against temptation. It is 
not as though you could refuse to face your 
temptation. You have to fight; and it is no use 
running away. Wherever you go you have to 
wrestle; and one of two things must always 
happen. You must either get temptation under, 
or it will get you under. This fight never ends 
in a “draw.” You must win or lose; and it 
will make all the difference in character here, 
and in destiny hereafter, as to which of these 
you do. 

Do not be deceived by the thought that the 
sin you indulged in was only a little one. Of 
course I do not say that sins are all equally 
ereat, but they all belong to the same family, 
and have a habit of introducing one another. 
Little sins, as we call them, open the door to 
big ones. Have you read “Oliver Twist,” by 
Dickens? I hope so; but if you have not, read 
it at once. Oliver was a little half-starved 


66 The Beauty of Strength 


work-house boy, who fell into the hands of a 
big, burly burglar named Bill Sikes, who used 
to “‘crack cribs” as he called it, that is, to break 
into people’s houses, and steal all their gold, 
and silver and precious jewels. Well, one day 
Bill Sikes saw a beautiful house that he was 
sure was worth breaking into. But the win- 
dows were all bolted and the doors were barred, 
and the servants were all honest, so that it 
looked as if there were no chance at all of get- 
ting in. But suddenly, he saw a little tiny win- 
dow belonging to a pantry at the back of the 
house. This was enough for him, and he chuck- 
led away to himself as he thought out his 
plan. He could not get in through this small 
window himself, but Oliver could. So one dark 
night he took Oliver by the hand, and with one 
of his “‘pals,’ Toby Crackit, he came to the 
house. He lifted Oliver up and pushed him 
through the little window, and he had to slip 
quietly along the passage and pull back the bolts 
of the big hall door, and let in the two burg- 
lars who would be waiting at the front. But 
if you have read the story you will remember 
that it did not come off, but something else did, 
very much to Bill Sikes’ surprise. 


The Secret of Strength 67 


Now, the thing that failed that night has too 
often succeeded with you and me. There has 
been some little half-starved sin, which we have 
only fed, perhaps, about once a month, and it 
has been allowed to creep into our hearts un- 
noticed, but it has slipped the bolts for the big 
sins that were waiting outside, and they have 
come trooping in to rob us of all our moral 
wealth, and lay our houses desolate and waste. 
Then, too, do not be fooled by the thought that 
it is only one sin that you commit, and that it 
doesn’t matter much. How many diseases does 
it take to kill a man’s body? Why, only one! 
A man does not need to have disease of the 
heart, and inflammation of the lungs, and ty- 
phoid fever, be shot through the head, and fall 
out of a sky-scraper window and break his neck, 
in order to die. If any one of these troubles 
has its own way with him, it is a case. And 
just as one disease will kill the body, so one sin 
indulged in will kill the soul. 

Now, I suppose most of you think that if 
it were not for temptation, you could be very 
good. It is the temptations that upset us, You 
get up in the morning, and sit on the edge of 
your bed, and as you pull on your socks you say 


68 The Beauty of Strength 


to yourself, “I did a mean thing yesterday, and 
had a bad time. I won’t do it any more.” And 
you mean it too; but your resolution has just 
been made when up comes a temptation, and 
down you go. You know all about it, so do I, 
and so does everyone, for we have all been 
there. “Well,” you say, “why, if God wants 
us to be good, does He allow us to be tempted?” 
The answer to this is that temptations are the 
only means through which goodness can get 
practice, and, through practice, get perfect. 
But suppose we leave that for the next chapter, 
when we will discuss some of the uses of temp- 
tation, 


Vil 
The Uses of Temptation 


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Vil 


The Uses of Temptation 


Temptation finds you out. No one knows 
what sort of a fellow a boy is until he has been 
tempted. Indeed, he does not know himself. 
Temptation tries him. It gets at his heart. One 
of the words for temptation in the Bible means 
to pierce, to get through the covering of things, 
and find out what lies beneath. This is just 
what temptation does. It takes no notice of fine 
clothes, or a pleasant face. It pushes its way 
behind all these, and wants to know what lives 
there, and bring it to the front. It gives us 
many painful surprises, sometimes, by what it 
discovers and brings out. No one would dream 
of all the mean and horrid things that lie hid- 
den in our hearts, till temptation stirs them up 
and makes them creep out. 

I remember once having to buy a cheese. A 
plump and cheery-looking storeman, with a 
lovely white apron, came up smilingly as I en- 


tered the shop. ‘There were cheeses every- 
71 


72 The Beauty of Strength 


where, on the floor, on the shelves, on the 
scales, and on the counter. Walking up to a 
row of respectable looking cheeses, which were 
nicely arranged where everyone could see them, 
I said, “‘One of these will do for me.’”’ And the 
man in the white apron smiled a broad, good, 
natured smile, and twinkled knowingly with his 
merry eyes as he chortled in his joy. I asked 
him what he was laughing at, and he said, 
“They are not cheeses at all, just hit one of 
them with this,” and he gave me a bright steel 
thing, which he called a “trier.” I did what he 
told me, and the thing I thought was a cheese 
was only a tin dummy, and gave out a sound 
like a cracked bullock-bell. Didn’t he laugh, 
though! “Now,” he said, reaching to an upper 
shelf and lifting down a heavy fellow to the 
counter, “‘this is the sort of thing you want; just 
lend me that trier for a moment, please.” Then 
he took it and plunged it right into the heart of 
the cheese, and after giving it a turn round, 
pulled it out again, and put what he got on a 
sheet of white paper. But, O my! it gave me 
the creeps to see it. It would not stay on the 
paper, we had to keep on bringing it back. It 
was the liveliest bit of cheese I had ever seen. 


The Uses of Temptation 73, 


It was playing leap-frog and fly-the-garter all 
over the place. If I had taken it home, I am 
sure it would not have stayed there; it would 
have scampered off into the back-yard. It 
wasn’t the kind of cheese I wanted at all. Some 
people prefer that kind, I know, but I like a 
cheese that will stay at home and that hasn’t 
to be chained up and watched all the time, for 
fear it should wander and get lost. But you 
see, I would not have known what it was like 
inside only for the “trier” that went to its heart. 

Now temptation is a “trier.” It finds you out. 
Temptation puts a strain on you. It tests your 
strength. What is the first thing a boy does 
when he picks up a piece of string? Why, he 
tries to break it. I never saw a boy yet pick 
up a bit of string without testing it; that is, 
“tempting” it to see how strong it is. You 
watch the next boy you see picking up string, 
and you will see him twist it round his hand 
and pull. If it doesn’t break, a look of satisfac- 
tion comes into his face, and he tucks it into the 
pocket of his knickers. When he gets home, 
he hunts all round the house for his mother, and 
when he finds her he wants her to make some 
paste. What does he want with paste? Why, 


74 The Beauty of Strength 


he is going to make a kite, of course. and it 
does not in the least matter what his mother is 
doing. She may be entertaining visitors in the 
drawing-room, or ironing his father’s white 
shirts in the kitchen, but she has to drop every- 
thing and go into the paste business, if only 
for the sake of peace. Presently you see my 
noble out on the back verandah with newspa- 
pers, scissors, sticks, and his pot of paste. Then 
in a very little while there is paste everywhere, 
on the floor, on the wall, on the verandah posts, 
all over the door handle, down the front of his 
blouse, and in his very hair. He stands in it, 
sits in it, kneels in it, wallows in it to his heart’s 
content. Indeed, it is just wonderful how far 
a boy can make a little paste go when he really 
makes up his mind to it, But never mind, there 
lies his shapely kite only waiting for its fixings, 
when into his pocket goes his hand, and out 
comes the piece of string which he is going to 
work in for the band of his kite. It is just the 
very thing he wants, not too thick, but very 
strong. He knows, because don’t you remem- 
ber he tested it on the way home! But just as 
he is fixing it on, his mate comes round the side 
of the house, and looking at the thinness of the 


The Uses of Temptation vA 


string, says, “I say, Bill, that there bit of string 
ain’t any good for a band! it’s too thin!’ “No, 
it isn’t,” says Bill. “How d’yer know?” says 
his mate. ‘Because I tried it,’ says Bill, “and 
I know what this bit of string can do.” “Well, 
I don’t think it’s strong enough,” says his mate 
still unsatisfied. “Well now, look here,” says 
Bill, “whose kite is this, yours or mine?” “Oh 
well, I suppose it’s yours.” “ATI right, you just 
leave me alone, see! I know what I’m doing.” 

And so he does, and by and by, when he flies 
that kite, the string he tested and trusted does 
not disappoint him. He tested, tried, tempted 
it, and because it came through all right and did 
not break down, he gave it that most important 
place in his kite. Now, that is just what God 
does. He allows temptation to put a strain 
upon you, and if you do not break down He 
gives you some important place to fill and some 
important work to do. People sometimes are 
surprised at the work God calls quite young 
people to do. Like Bill’s mate they don’t think 
that this boy or that girl is quite up to what is 
expected of them, and sometimes they say so. 
But God knows His boys and His girls. He 
has watched them during the testing time, and 


76 The Beauty of Strength 


when He trusts them with some important task 
they do not disappoint the expectation of His 
love. 

But supposing a bit of string breaks when a 
boy tests it, does he throw it away? No fear! 
I never saw a boy throw away a bit of string 
yet. Why, a boy has need of all kinds of string. 
Rotten string, strong string, blue string, white 
string, thick string, thin string. Sometimes a 
boy will fetch a whole heap of string out of his 
pocket ; and if you happen to want a piece and 
show him which, he will be sure to say he can’t 
give you that piece. He has been saving it up 
for something special for a long time. And it 
would have been all the same whatever piece you 
might have fancied. No, a boy never throws 
away string, so if a piece breaks when he tries 
it, he just ties a knot in it and puts it in the 
other pocket to wait for its chance. Soon it 
comes, for when that kite we were speaking 
about is nearly finished, there is something else 
that has to be put to it. What is that! Why 
a tail, of course. A kite is of no use without a 
tail! 

So out comes the piece of string that broke 
down under temptation; and as the boy looks at 


The Uses of Temptation rig 


it he says, “Well, I couldn’t use you for a band, 
you know, because you are not strong enough 
and you broke down, but I’m going to work you 
in for a tail; there won’t be so much strain on 
you there.” And so the piece of string that 
failed in the hour of temptation is not thrown 
away, you see, but gets another chance. And 
God does not throw us away because we break 
down under temptation. No, He is very loving 
and hopeful. Because His love is infinite, it 
will not allow His hope in us to die. Some have 
broken down very often, and God cannot per- 
haps give them the place in His Church that He 
would like to give them. They might have been 
at the head, had they been faithful; but they 
have broken down so often, that God has had to 
work them into the tail. O that you who read 
these pages may stand the strain of temptation, 
and be thus fitted and chosen for high and hon- 
ourable places in the Church and in the world. 
And if anyone should happen to read this, even 
among those who are not children, those who 
have frequently failed at the testing points of 
their history, and through unfaithfulness are at 
the tail instead of at the head, then let me say 
to you, Be a good tail! Do not disappoint God 


78 The Beauty of Strength 


even in the lowly place. The tail is not unim- 
portant. Many a cricket match has been saved 
from defeat by the tail, and many a good en- 
terprise has failed because at a critical moment 
the tail dropped off. I remember as a boy hav- 
ing a lovely kite, and about a hundred yards of 
string, and I lost the kite, and nearly all the 
string, because the tail dropped off down some- 
one’s chimney. Wherever you are, then, 
whether in the high or in the lowly place, be 
faithful and do not disappoint the expectation 
of your Heavenly Father’s heart. 

Now we have seen that temptation tests us; 
that it finds us out, and shows us what we are. 
But it does more than this. It strengthens us; 
that is, if we come through all right. 

A piece of string is no stronger after it is 
tested than it was before. Even if it does not 
break down under the strain, it gains nothing 
from it. It does not go on winning fresh 
strength out of every trial. But we do. Every 
temptation that we successfully resist makes us 
stronger to meet the next. 

Suppose that I have a gold piece which has 
somehow got discolored, and, when I want to 
change it, the man behind the counter objects, 


The Uses of Temptation 79 


and won't believe that it is genuine. I tell him 
that it is all right, but he shakes his head, rings 
the coin two or three times on the counter, looks 
doubtful, and refuses to pass it. Presently he 
says, “I'll tell you what. There’s a chemist 
next door; if you will let him test this coin 
with a powerful acid, and it comes through all 
right, I’ll pass it.” Of course, I agree, be- 
cause I know it is a genuine coin. So in we go 
to the chemist’s, and tell him our trouble. He 
takes down a bottle of acid and looks very wise. 
Just before he touches my coin with it, he tells 
us that if it be a bad one it will immediately turn 
green when the acid touches it; while, if it be 
a good one, it will remain just the same. Then, 
dropping a glass tube into the bottle, he touches 
my coin with a drop of the acid, and we all 
watch to see how it will behave. Everything 
happens just as I expected. The coin is gen- 
uine, and comes through the testing time with 
credit. 

But the question is, Is it any better now than 
it was before? Nota bit. Can I get a little 
more than its value for it now? Certainly not! 
It is not worth a cent more after the test than it 
was before. But, it is not so with us. If we 


80 The Beauty of Strength 


come through the tests of temptation we are 
worth more. We become stronger, and nobler, 
and purer; we are better able to face the temp- 
tations of to-morrow, when we have overcome 
the temptations of to-day. Do you know that 
there was a belief among the aboriginals who 
used to run wild about Australia, that whenever 
they killed a man in fair fight they inherited his 
strength? That is to say, if one of these fellows 
killed another, all the strength of the man that 
was dead passed into the man that killed him, 
and so, of course, the more fellows he killed, 
the stronger he became. Now, that is all non- 
sense about these aboriginals; but it is sober 
truth about temptations. Every temptation that 
you master and get beneath your feet will make 
you so much stronger than ever you were be- 
fore. 

This is why God allows us to be tempted, that 
we may win out of our temptations a finer and 
more enduring strength. Temptation does for 
our souls what the gymnasium does for our 
bodies; it fetches up our moral muscle. I used 
to think like you do that if I only had God’s 
power, I would put temptation clean out of the 
world, and thus make it easy for people to be 


The Uses of Temptation 81 


good. I don’t think so now; for temptation is 
the school for training out our strength, and 
not only our strength, but our beauty too. 
There was a little girl in Australia who was 
very fond of collecting butterflies and beetles. 
If you went into her room you would see all 
sorts of creeping and flying things. Some alive, 
and others dead and pinned to the wall, or fixed 
in glass boxes. If you opened a box on the 
mantelpiece out would creep a centipede; if you 
lifted a tumbler that was turned upside down, 
out would come a tarantula, you never knew 
what you were going to find in that girl’s room. 
Well, one day she was at the Museum when the 
curator was unpacking and fixing some very 
beautiful butterflies in their cases. She had 
never seen any as lovely in color before, and she 
went into ecstasies of delight. The curator 
knew her a little, for he had seen her there 
often; so he said that if she liked she might 
have one of these butterflies for herself, but it 
would be in its chrysalis state, and she must 
take it home and wait for it to come out. Of 
course she was delighted, and thanking him 
warmly she started home with her prize. She 
put it on the mantlepiece, and waited for its 


82 The Beauty of Strength 


coming out for more than a week. When one 
morning she went to look, there to her delight, 
the butterfly was out of his prison, and flutter- 
ing away on the top of the empty chrysalis. 
She could not see the beauty of the wings, be- 
cause they were fluttering so fast. 

Well, that little thing kept on fluttering so 
long that she got tired of seeing it, and began 
to wonder why it did not stop. Presently she 
saw that it was not quite free, it seemed held by 
a tiny little thread to the chrysalis shell. “Ah!” 
she said, “that is it! The poor little thing can’t 
get loose, and that is why it is struggling so. 
I'll soon put that all right.” So running over to 
her work-box she took out a tiny pair of scis- 
sors and just snipped the thread that held the 
butterfly captive to the shell. Presently feeling 
itself free, it settled down, and its wings be- 
came perfectly still. But what was her disap- 
pointment to find, when she looked, that it was 
not nearly so beautiful as the ones she had seen 
at the museum. So she made up her mind to 
tell the curator the very next time she saw him. 
It was not long after that she met him, and he 
said, “Well, how did your butterfly turn out?” 
So she looked at him in a very dissatisfied way 


The Uses of Temptation 83 


and said, “I don’t think you’re a bit nice, you 
told me that it was going to be as beautiful as 
those you were putting in the cases, and it isn’t 
nearly as pretty.” ‘“Oh,” said he, ‘what did 
you do to it?” “TI never did anything.” “Oh, 
yes, you must have, or it would have been just 
the same. Come, now! What did you do?” 
“Why, I didn’t do any harm, I only helped it a 
little.’ “Helped it! What do you mean?” 
“Why, the poor thing was struggling so hard 
and so long that I felt quite sorry for it.” “You 
surely didn’t set it free to stop its struggles?” 
“Yes, I did.”” “Oh, you silly girl, no wonder it 
is not so beautiful as mine. Why, don’t you 
know that when the butterfly comes out of the 
chrysalis first, its wings are all crumpled up and 
weak, and the colors are all dull; but it is so 
fixed by that tiny thread that it has to struggle 
for freedom, and in these struggles the wings 
erow in strength and beauty. You have 
‘helped’ the butterfly; but, ah! you have for- 
ever spoiled its beauty.”’ 

That is why temptation comes into our lives, 
that we may have to struggle, and through 
struggle, grow in beauty and in strength. God 
wants to make us strong and beautiful, with a 


84 The Beauty of Strength 


strength and a beauty that will outlast the stars. 
He wants to bring out the best that is in us, and 
so He has set us where we shall have to 
struggle and wrestle. But do not be afraid. 
You need never be beaten. All God’s power 
is at your back. The devil can do a great many 
things; but he can never cut off our supplies. 
He can never tempt us above what we are able 
to bear nor come’ between us and our Great 
Captain Christ. Always fall back on your 
Saviour’s strength, and you will find that in 
every struggle His arm will sustain you, and 
His presence will cheer. 


Vill 
The Girdle 





VIII 


The Girdle 


“Having your loins girt about with truth.” 
EPHESIANS vi. 14 

We are now to see how Paul took the Roman 
soldier’s armour piece by piece and found a 
moral meaning in every part of it, with its les- 
son for you and me. Now although the girdle 
is the first thing he mentions it was really the 
last thing, which after putting on his armour 
he buckled round his waist. It held all the other 
pieces together, and kept them in place. With- 
out the girdle, they would shift about while he 
fought, and thus make him both uncomfortable 
and unsafe. You know what an uncomfortable 
thing it is to have things loose and uncertain 
about the waist. Why, even girls have been 
known to tighten up round the waist, and they 
don’t have to fight. Somehow, we all like to 
have a feeling of togetherness round the loins, 
especially when there is any work to be done. 


Now, that is the feeling which the girdle gave to 
87 


88 The Beauty of Strength 


the Roman soldier. It sort of braced him up 
and kept him together. The other parts of the 
armour were valuable only as they were kept 
in their proper place, and this is what the girdle 
did. You know that in football or cricket or 
in running a race, it is a wretched thing to have 
your belt too loose. You cannot do half as well 
as when it is tightened up. You have a centre 
to work from, and feel quite fit when you have 
taken it up a hole or two. Now, Paul knew all 
this about the girdle, and what an important 
part it had to fill in fixing up the soldier for the 
fight. So he began to wonder what thing that 
was, which like the Roman soldier’s girdle, must 
be worn by the Christian soldier if he too is 
to feel comfortable and secure. It does not take 
him long to find that out. The one thing that 
can gird a man round with strength and safety 
is truth, and so he says, “Stand, therefore, hav- 
ing your loins girt about with truth.” 

Now, the word “truth” has many meanings. 
In this text it may mean either or all of three 
things: Something to be known, something to 
be spoken, something to be done. We speak of 
knowing the truth about a thing. This gives a 
feeling of comfort. There is never any com- 


The Girdle 89 


fort in doubt. Suppose you live half an hour’s 
walk from the railway station, and that you 
have to catch a train to-morrow morning; but 
you don’t know whether it starts at six or seven. 
You have not taken the trouble to find out the 
truth about the train, and it worries you before 
you go to bed, because you don’t want to over- 
sleep yourself, and yet you don’t want to get 
up tooearly. At half-past five you wake witha 
start, and scramble into your clothes anyhow. 
A lovely little breakfast is ready for you of 
toast and eggs, for your mother has been up 
since before five. But you feel too anxious to 
want to eat, for you are not sure as to whether 
you have time. So with your shoes only half 
fastened, and your vest fixed up with the bot- 
tom button in the second button-hole, you try 
to take your coffee standing, only to scald your 
tongue in your hurry, and then, snatching up a 
piece of bread in one hand and your bag in the 
other, you coast off to the station as hard as 
you can tear, only to find when you get there 
at six that you have an hour to wait, for your 
train doesn’t start till seven. There is not time 
to go back and get your breakfast, and so you 
sit there, hungry, hurried, and shaken up gen- 


go The Beauty of Strength 


erally, while other people quietly walk on to the 
platform at five minutes to seven, looking com- 
fortable and happy, for they have had their 
breakfast without being rushed, because they 
knew the truth about the train. Then you 
think about your eggs and toast, and what a 
time you would have had if you had only known. 
But then you didn’t know, and so you have had 
all this worry and hurry just to sit hungry and 
miserable on the platform and cool your heels 
for an hour, when you might have been as 
happy as a king! 

It is a grand thing to know the truth about a 
thing, even if it is only a time-table. It gives 
you such a feeling of safety, and saves you from 
being bustled out of breath. The Bible says: 
“He that believeth shall not make haste.” This 
is true even about everyday things. But Paul 
was thinking and speaking about other and 
higher things than those of earth and time. He 
was thinking of the truth about God being our 
Father, and Jesus being our Saviour, and 
Heaven being our home. Whatever else you 
may be tempted to doubt, hold fast to this. It 
is a truth you can always be sure of, whatever 
else may be uncertain, and the knowledge of it 


The Girdle gl 


will gird you round with strength; it will save 
you from hurry and worry, and will brace you 
up to bear the burdens and to fight the battles 
of your life. The man who is not sure about 
things can never be happy or safe. Certainty 
is the only thing that can give comfort. Don’t 
you see that to be certain in your mind is the 
only way to be certain in your actions? You 
must be sure in your thinking to be sure in your 
working. You know how true this is in sums. 
If you are working out a new example in arith- 
metic, and you come to a place where you are 
not certain as to whether you ought to multiply 
or divide, all that you do will be doubtful be- 
cause of the doubt in your mind. Of course, 
you may chance to do the right thing, but then, 
you don’t know that it is right, so that for all 
the comfort it is to you, it might as well be 
wrong. 

If you have ever lost your way in the bush, 
you will know what this feeling is. You can- 
not walk along comfortably or confidently when 
you are not sure whether you are getting nearer 
home, or whether every step is taking you far- 
ther away. Have you ever seen a dog lose the 
scent when he has been after a hare? He runs 


Q2 The Beauty of Strength 


round and round, with his nose to the ground; 
then he doubles back on his tracks; then he 
stops, and, lifting one of his paws from the 
ground, holds it up in doubt, and raises his nose 
in the air, as if he were trying to sniff which 
way to go from the wind; then off again, work- 
ing round and round in circles, and trying to 
pick up the trail of his game. That is a very 
unhappy moment for a dog. He is uncertain 
in his mind, and, of course, he is uncertain in 
his running. Paul, in one of his letters to the 
Corinthians, tells them that he does not run like 
that. He knows where he is going. He does 
not waste any time fooling round. “So run I 
not as uncertainly’’—not like a dog that has lost 
the scent, but like a hound that is hot on the 
trail. But this fine going came of knowing. 
Paul’s knowledge of the truth braced him up to 
do his very best, and saved him from wasting 
his strength. It kept him well together. No 
strength was spent in worry because of doubt; 
every ounce went into his work. 

What knowledge of the truth did for him it 
will do for you if you get it and gird yourself 
with it. But this is a kind of truth that you 
must get to know for yourself. A truth that 


The Girdle 93 


you get to know for yourself becomes yours in 
a way that it could never become by only hear- 
ing it from someone else. Take, for example, 
the truth about that train I spoke of just now. 
If you had such an experience, you would not 
require a time-table in future to tell you that 
it started at seven o’clock. You found it out 
for yourself, and you never forget a thing you 
learn like that. Of course, there are some truths 
that you had better not get to know for your- 
self. It is wiser and safer to take another per- 
son’s word for them. If the chemist puts a 
“poison” label on a bottle of liniment that comes 
into your house, that is the truth about it: but 
you had better not set about knowing it for 
yourself, unless you wish to give your friends 
a half-holiday to attend your funeral. You 
will find that it saves a lot of trouble, and ex- 
pense, too, to take the chemist’s word for it in 
such a case. But there are other truths that 
you must get to know for yourself if you are to 
be girt about with strength to “stand in the 
evil day, and having done all to stand.” 

Every boy and girl may get to know that 
God is their Father, that He knows them each, 
and calls them each by name. This is the great- 


94 The Beauty of Strength 


est truth in the world. It is the truth that 
Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth to 
teach. He came to tell us the truth about God, 
to let us see into His heart, and to show us 
that we each have a place there, that no one else 
can fill. When you have got to know this for 
yourself, when you are able to look up into His 
face and say “My Father!’ and hear Him say 
to you “My Child,” you will find yourself cir- 
cled round with a strength and comfort that 
nothing else can give. Because if God is your 
Father, that means that all His power and wis- 
dom and love will be for you whenever you 
need them, and that is always. His power to 
protect you, His wisdom to guide you, and His 
love to caress you and fold you to His heart. 
But truth is not only something to be known; 
it is also something to be spoken and done. To 
be truthful and honest in speech and action, 
will give you a feeling of security and fearless- 
ness that nothing can destroy. I have not time 
to speak about these things. Some other day, 
and under another text, we may have a talk to- 
gether along these lines. But be truthful and 
thorough, no matter what it costs. Have noth- 
ing to do with make-believes. Mere pretence 


The Girdle 95 


may seem to succeed, but it is only for a time, 
and the pretender is always in fear and trem- 
bling lest he should be bowled out. There is no 
security in anything but the truth, whether in 
thinking or speaking or doing. Above all things 
else then be thorough, and sincere. 


‘“Whatsoe’er you find to do, 
Do it, boys, with all your might! 
Never be a little true, 
Or a little in the right. 
Trifles even 
Lead to heaven, 
Trifles make the life of man. 
So in all things, 
Great or small things, 
Be as thorough as you can. 


“Let no speck their surface dim— 
Spotless truth and honor bright! 
I'd not give a fig for him 
Who says any lie is white! 
He who falters, 
Twists, or alters 
Little atoms, when we speak, 
May deceive me; 
But, believe me, 
To himself he is a sneak!” 





EX 
The Breastplate 





IX 


The Breastplate 


“Having on the breastplate of righteousness.” 
EPHESIANS vi. I4 

Last time we had to do with the girdle of 
truth, or right-thinking. To-day we have to 
deal with the breastplate of righteousness, or 
right doing, 

The Roman soldier wore the breastplate to 
protect his heart. You will remember that the 
girdle held the breastplate in its place and kept 
it from shifting round. That means that right- 
thinking is necessary to right-doing. It is not 
enough to know what is right. Most of you 
know well enough what you ought to do; it is 
the doing it that tangles you up. It is not 
through want of knowing better that you so 
often get into trouble; but through want of do- 
ing what you know. Now, to know without do- 
ing is like going into battle with the girdle on, 
but no breastplate. What is the use of know- 


ing that school begins at half past nine if you 
99 


100 ‘The Beauty of Strength 


don’t turn up till ten? Don’t you see that it 
makes things all the worse when you know the 
right and yet do the wrong! If you didn’t 
know, you might be excused. I say “might be,” 
because it all depends upon whether you could 
have known or not. Where it is possible to 
know it becomes wrong to be ignorant. Sup- 
pose you go up to the Zoo some day, and com- 
mence to annoy the birds and animals, and when 
you are caught you say you didn’t know it was 
wrong! Do you think you would be let off, 
even if it were true ? Not much! Because you 
should have known, for just at the entrance 
there is a big board telling you the things you 
must not do, so that in such a case ignorance is 
no excuse. 

Of course, wrong-headedness cannot always 
be helped. The best-intentioned people may 
make blunders. But to know what is right and 
to go straight away and do the wrong is wrong- 
ness of heart and is not to be excused. The 
trouble with most of us is not with our heads, 
but with our hearts. Righteousness, then, is 
a matter of the heart; that is why it is called 
the breastplate. Now, it is the heart that rules 
the life. Unless, therefore, it is put right and 


The Breastplate 101 


kept right, it is of no use trying to make hands 
or feet or tongue behave. Suppose that the 
hands of my watch keep going wrong, so that 
when I look for the time I am never sure as to 
whether it is telling me the truth. What is to 
be done? It is no use dealing with the hands; it 
is not their fault. I may twist them round and 
put them right to the very second with the post 
office clock; but what’s the use of that? They 
will commence immediately to go wrong again. 
The trouble is deeper. The watch is wrong at 
heart. It must be dealt with at its centre. So 
I take it to the watchmaker. He opens it up, 
puts a strong magnifying glass to his eye, and 
looks inside. After peering and poking for a 
few minutes, he says “Ah!” and if you heard 
him you would think he was very sorry for me, 
by the tone of his voice; but you would be mis- 
taken for that is only a little way that he’s got. 
As a matter of fact, he is very glad, but you 
would never gather it from his manner. He 
looks very serious, and says that he must keep 
it for a week or two, for there is something very 
wrong inside, which may or may not be true. 
But then, you see, he could not very well charge 
me three or four dollars for what would take 


102 The Beauty of Strength 


him only half a minute to do. So he has to 
keep up appearances, and in order to make up 
for the wrong of overcharging me, he inflicts 
a further wrong by keeping me without my 
watch for a fortnight longer than he ought. As 
the trouble, however, is internal, and I cannot 
deal with it myself, I have no choice but just 
to leave it with him. 

Now, supposing him to be a man who under- 
stands his business, and does it, when I get that 
watch back it will have been so changed in- 
wardly that outwardly it will be right; whereas 
before it used to deceive and mislead, now it will 
tell the truth. It has been put right at heart; 
and as the hands are ruled by the heart, when 
it is made truthful, so are they. Now, truly as 
the hands of a watch are governed by its heart, 
so are yours. That is why the Bible attaches 
so much importance to the heart being right. 
It never troubles about mere appearances. It 
pushes past all that is outward, taking no notice 
of fine clothes or fine looks. It takes the rich 
man, clothed in purple and fine linen, and holds 
him up to shame and everlasting contempt, be- 
cause his heart was mean and narrow and self- 
ish; while it shows Lazarus, in spite of poverty 


The Breastplate 103 


and rags, and because his heart was pure, being 
borne to heaven, attended by an angel guard. 

The great thing, then, is to be right at heart. 
Now, just as the watch that is inwardly wrong 
must be taken to the watchmaker, so the heart 
that is wrong must be taken to the heartmaker. 
God says to every lad and girl: “My son, my 
daughter, give me thine heart.” If you will but 
let Him, He will set you right, and keep you 
right. The other day the tuner came to fix our 
piano. He has to come about once every three 
months to tone things up and keep the instru- 
ment in tune, because the changes in the weather 
make changes in the strings. Now, suppose 
that the next time that he comes, I could put 
him inside the instrument and keep him there, 
why, it would not matter then what sort of 
weather it was, he would always keep the thing 
in tune. Now, that is just what Christ prom- 
ises to do. He offers to come into the heart, to 
live there, to put it in tune, and keep it in tune, 
until by and by its music shall blend with the 
deep, full music of the skies. Such a righteous- 
ness as Jesus thus works in the heart becomes 
a breastplate, protecting it from harm. The 
best defence from attack is right-doing. It is 


104 The Beauty of Strength 


not enough to be doing no harm, because that 
would lay the heart open to assault. The boy 
or girl that isn’t doing anything, is always in 
danger. It is a terribly risky thing to be un- 
employed. The devil is always looking after 
people who are out of work, and offering them 
a job. The best safeguard from doing wrong 
is doing right. Doing right is always in sea- 
son. It does not go out like football and cricket. 
You know how you get “out of form’ in a 
game because it “goes out” as we say, and it 
takes some time at practice to get your hand 
and eye in at the beginning of the season. Now, 
don’t get out of practice in doing right; keep 
it up all the year round. It is a game you can 
always play, winter and summer, night and 
day, and it will weave a breastplate of safety 
around you that all the darts of the devil will 
never be able to pierce. 


xX 
The Sandals 





x 
The Sandals 


“Having your feet shod with the preparation of 

the Gospel of peace.” 
EPHESIANS Vi. 15 

The Roman soldier wore boots, or sandals, 
the soles of which were thickly studded with 
big-headed nails, to keep him from slipping and 
sliding about. It is very important, even in a 
game, to keep on your feet; but in a battle it 
may prove a matter of life or death. To slip 
is to give the other side a great advantage. 
Then, again, in marching, a soldier needs all 
his strength, and there is nothing that so wastes 
strength as to be slipping about and finding no 
certain foothold from which to spring your 
step. You soon get exhausted in walking on a 
wet day and on greasy soil if your feet can 
get no firm hold of the ground. Those of you 
who live in cities know how hard it is even for 
horses—and they have four legs to your two— 


to keep their footing on the wooden blocks or 
107 


108 The Beauty of Strength 


asphalt after a shower. Either they have to 
be shod specially, to keep them from falling, or 
else sand has to be sprinkled about, so that 
they can get a grip of the road. While those 
of you who live in the country will know that 
in some parts at any rate, where the soil 1s very 
rich, horses need shoes specially made with 
heels, or they could not get along. It takes a 
lot more out of a horse if he slips about and 
cannot get firm foothold when he pulls. One 
mile of that sort of thing would leave him — 
more knocked out than five of straight-forward 
pulling when every ounce of strength goes into 
his work. Why, even a locomotive must not 
be allowed slip on the rails, or it will strain all 
its parts. That is why every engine carries a 
sand-box, from which a little pipe leads down 
on to the lines, so that on wet or frosty morn- 
ings when the rails are greasy the driver can 
trickle out sand in front of the driving wheel 
and get a grip of the road. An engine-driver 
told me that, one frosty morning, in travelling 
with a heavy load of steel rails, his engine com- 
- menced to slip—that is, the wheels went round 
and round without gripping, and it threw such 
an extra strain on the left-hand side-rod that 


The Sandals 109 


it broke. This gave the right-hand rod more 
to do than it could manage, and so it broke also, 
and his disabled engine had to lie up for re- 
pairs. 

You can always tell when an engine is slip- 
ping, for instead of the steady and regular 
“puff, puff, puff,” you hear it going “puff-puff- 
puff puff”; while all the time it stops about the 
same place. This shows that sand is needed on 
the rails to give grip to the wheels; and unless 
this is done, the slipping will strain and perhaps 
break either cranks or rods. Now, if a dead, 
dumb thing of wheels and pistons and cranks 
can thus suffer through not getting proper 
foothold, is it any wonder that living creatures 
should be worn out and lose their strength when 
they can find no proper hold for their feet? 
But firm foothold not only saves your strength, 
it gives a sense of safety. If you are not 
sure as to whether you can stand up and keep 
your feet, you feel afraid, and when you feel 
afraid you can never do your best, either in 
the examination-room or the playground. You 
know what it is to get into what’s called a 
“funk * when you are batting. A bowler is put 
on who knows your weak spot, and always gets 


110 The Beauty of Strength 


your wicket. While the field is changing over, 
you hitch up your flannels, look nervously 
round, and ask for “‘block.’”’ Then a film comes 
over your eyes, your heart beats fast, you feel 
that, somehow, there is not enough air to go 
all round so that everyone can have a share. 
Anyhow, you cannot get a deep, full breath, and 
when the umpire calls “Play,” something tells 
you that the end is come. You have made up 
your mind before the ball is delivered (always 
a bad thing) that you will play “forward,” then 
just as it leaves the bowler’s hand you change 
your mind and determine to play “back”; but 
at the last moment you get so flurried that you 
do neither; the ball slips in between your legs 
and the bat, and your leg stump goes for a 
walk! It was just as you expected, and it hap- 
pened largely because you expected it. Then 
when you are taking off your pads the fellows 
come up and want to know whatever made you 
go out for such a soft thing as that, when you 
had already played a hundred much more dif- 
ficult balls. Well, there’s only one word that 
can express it, and that is “funk.’”? You were 
afraid the bowler would get you, and that is 
why he did. If you had only made up your 


The Sandals 111 


mind not to be afraid, you might have carried 
out your bat. You must have confidence, 
whether you are playing a game, or parsing a 
sentence, or fighting a battle. 

Anything that can add to this feeling of con- 
fidence in a soldier is important, because in 
battle a “funk” has a wonderful way of spread- 
ing till it becomes a panic, so that the whole 
company, without knowing why, will break up 
and run, when, if they had only confidently 
stood their ground, they might have had an 
easy win. 

The Roman soldier’s boot, then, was so made 
as to give him firm standing, that he might 
have every advantage that could be got from 
a solid footing when he met his foe. I wish 
that I could give you a picture of these mili- 
tary sandals—‘“calige,” the Romans called 
them—but you have perhaps seen spiked shoes 
such as cricketers or tennis players wear who 
play on turf, and that will give you some idea 
of the thing that’s meant. Now, Paul says that 
the thing that will do for you what the Roman 
soldier’s sandals did for him is the “prepara- 
tion of the Gospel of peace.” This is the thing 


112 #The Beauty of Strength 


with which you must be shod or in which your 
feet are to find footing that cannot be moved. 
The English word “preparation” in our text 
does not make Paul’s meaning very clear. I 
think I have told you before that this letter 
was written in Greek. Now, you know that a 
word in English, without changing its spelling, 
may have quite a number of different mean- 
ings. Well, it is just the same in Greek, and 
sometimes you can find out what is meant only 
by a very careful study of everything that has 
been said before, and by comparing the dif- 
ferent uses of the word by different men. Now, 
it is a word of this sort that Paul uses, and 
which has been translated ‘preparation.” 
Even very great scholars have been puzzled as 
to what he meant. Bishop Ellicott, one of the 
cleverest of Greek scholars, says that the word 
Paul uses does not mean in this place ‘“‘prepara- 
tion,’ but “foundation,” or “‘base,” just as we 
should speak of the “foundation” of a house 
or the “base” of a mountain, by which we 
should mean something very firmly set and 
solid. This is what it means in the Greek copy 
of the Old Testament, in Psalm Ixxxix. 14: 
“Righteousness and judgment are the ‘founda- 


The Sandals 113 


tion’ of Thy throne’; and in Ezra iti. 3, “And 
they set the altar upon his ‘base.’ ” 

What Paul wanted to say, then, was this, 
that our feet must be placed on the solid foun- 
dation of the Gospel, just as the Roman soldier’s 
feet were solidly planted on and strapped to 
his sandals, if we are to find firm footing in 
our struggle against sin. But what is this Gos- 
pel? The word “Gospel” is short for ‘“God’s 
spell,” or good-spell. “Spell” is the old Eng- 
lish word for “story.” So that the Gospel is 
God’s story—that is, the story of God’s love for 
you and me and all mankind! This is the story 
that Jesus came to tell, and that He died to 
prove. When we believe it and receive it with 
all our hearts, we find firm rock beneath our 
feet, though all around may be sinking sand. 

I wonder whether any of you have ever been 
on a quicksand. I remember doing a very fool- 
ish and dangerous thing, which nearly cost me 
my life. I was on horseback, and not far from 
the coast, and, hearing the roll of the waves, 
thought I would give the horse a canter along 
the beach and bathe his legs. But as soon as 
I turned his head towards the shore, he got 
stubborn, and did not want to go. That, of 


114 The Beauty of Strength 


course, only made me more determined that 
he should, for someone had told me that you 
must never let a horse get the mastery, or it 
will spoil him. I said that this horse should 
not be spoiled by me, so I used the whip and 
forced him to the edge of the sand. Then I 
noticed that he was trembling all over, and in- 
clined to crouch beneath me. Thinking it was 
just fear of the salt water, I tried to encourage 
him, told him that it was all right, called him 
“old fellow,” and coaxed him to “get up.” Still 
he stopped and trembled, till at last, getting im- 
patient at what I thought was his cowardice, 
I gave him some more whip, when, with a 
bound, as much as to say, “All right, my young 
master, if you want it, you shall have it, and 
more than you like,” he plunged forward, when, 
to my terror, no sooner were his forelegs placed 
on the sand than down they went, right up 
to the shoulders, nearly sending me over his 
head. We were nearly gone altogether, and 
it was only because his hind legs kept the solid 
eround, that he was able, after one or two 
struggles, to wheel round with a wild snort and 
escape from what would have proved certain 
death to us both. When I got home to the 


The Sandals 115 


farm where I was staying and told my story, 
the old farmer said: “My boy, th’ old horse 
did knaw better than thee; and if he ’adn’t, 
theest wouldn’t been here to tell thy tale.” 

Then he told me dreadful stories of men and 
horses that had been caught in that quicksand 
and never got out alive, till my heart stood 
still with fear. After he had finished, I went 
out and told the horse how sorry I was for 
what I had done, and as he held down his dear 
old face for me to stroke he seemed to know 
what I was saying, and to be making allow- 
ances for a fellow who did not understand. 
But I shall never forget the joy I felt at know- 
ing that the solid ground was again beneath 
my feet. 

This is just the sort of feeling that the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ gives you when you set 
fairly on it with both your feet. But, re- 
member, everyone must find his own footing 
there. Just as each Roman soldier had to pos- 
sess and stand in his own sandals, so everyone 
has to find his own footing on the Gospel of 
Christ. There is room for everyone, but each 
for himself must come and find his place. Once 


116 The Beauty of Strength 


you get both your feet on this solid rock, you 
will be able to fight without fear of a fall. 

In this struggle, then, don’t take your stand 
upon the shifting sand of your own good reso- 
lutions, or of what people will think or say, or 
of what other lads or girls may do or may not 
do; you will find no sure foothold in any of 
these places. Stand with both your feet on the 
“old, old story of Jesus and His love,” and 
nothing can shift you. Here is Rock. All 
beside is shifting sand. Then by and by, when 
the last fight has been fought and the last vic- 
tory has been won, and the hour has come for 
you to die, you will be able to sing the words 
and feel them true: 

“His oath, His covenant, His blood, 
Support me in the whelming flood, 
When all around my soul gives way, 
He then is all my hope and stay. 


On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, 
All other ground is shifting sand.” 


XI 
The Shield 


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XI 


The Shield 


“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith 
ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
wicked.” 

EPHESIANS vi. 16 

We do not know much about shields in these 
days. We only see them in pictures. Some 
day, when you go to dear old England, you 
will visit the Tower of London. There you 
will see the shields and all the armour of the 
knights who used to clash their battle-axes in 
the good old days of lance and tourney. These 
shields belong to a bygone time of spears and 
arrows, but are useless now, when we have 
rifles that can pierce through wood, and even 
iron, at a distance of a thousand yards. 

Now, the Roman soldier of Paul’s time had 
two kinds of shields. There was a small round 
one, that he wore on his left arm in fighting; 
and there was a large oblong one, 4 feet long 


and 2 feet 6 inches broad, like a fair-sized door, 
119 


120 The Beauty of Strength 


which was used ina siege. It was usually made 
of wood, across which were stretched several 
folds of tough bullock hide. Now, you know 
that in war it is a great thing, if possible, to 
destroy the enemy’s supplies of food and am- 
munition. This is a very old trick, and the 
Romans knew it well; and so they provided 
against it. There were, of course, no such 
things as explosive’shells in those days, because 
gunpowder was not known to the Romans. But 
their enemies used to wrap around their spears 
and arrows something that would burn easily, 
like cloth soaked in oil or pitch. Then, after 
lighting these, they would let them fly into the 
camp, or on the tents and baggage, and burn 
up the forage of the horses and the food of 
the men. This is where the shields would come 
in. It was the business of those who carried 
them to catch these flaming brands before they 
had time to fall, and put them out. You can 
quite see that if a dart all blazing with lighted 
pitch were to drop on to the stacked-up bag- 
gage of the troops, there would soon be very 
little left; and once the camp was burnt, sur- 
render would be a matter of a very few days. 
A great deal, then, depended on the smart- 


The Shield 121 


ness of the soldiers in watching and quenching 
these flaming darts. Now, we have an enemy 
who would dearly like to interfere with our 
supplies. If he cannot hurt us the next best 
thing is to stop them. But then we too, have 
a shield—something that can come in between 
us and the darts of our foe, sheltering both 
ourselves, and our supplies of grace and 
strength from God. This shield or shelter, says 
Paul, is our faith—that is, our faith in Jesus 
Christ. 

Now, faith is a thing you often hear about. 
Perhaps you may have wondered why so much 
is made of it in the Bible. Everything seems 
to depend on faith. Of course you know that 
faith means belief, trust, confidence. You can- 
not post a letter without faith. Suppose you 
write to a friend in England, or Australia. It 
requires faith to believe that by simply putting 
on a stamp, and dropping it into a hole, it will 
find its way across the ocean to the house of 
your friend. But so it is, andif you didn’t be- 
lieve, you would not do it. So that the com- 
monest things we do every day depend on faith. 
That slice of bread and butter you had for 

breakfast came through faith. First of all, the 


122 The Beauty of Strength 


farmer scattered the wheat all over the brown 
and furrowed soil. That required faith, for if 
there is anything that looks like wasting good 
wheat, it is that of scattering it broadcast over 
the face of the earth. Then, when it is reaped 
and ready for the mill, the miller buys it be- 
cause he believes that when he makes it into 
flour the baker will want it. Then the baker 
has faith when he makes it into bread that the 
people will need it, and he leaves it at your 
house every day, without waiting for the 
money, because he has faith that some day your 
father will pay him. So that even in common, 
everyday things, you see, we could not get along 
without having faith in one another. You 
cannot even play a game with a fellow you 
don’t believe in. There is no fun where there’s 
no faith. If you have to be watching the other 
chap all the time, to see he doesn’t cheat, it is 
not good enough. There must be perfect con- 
fidence or there will be no pleasure in your play. 

Now, it is because faith is the thing we use 
every day amongst ourselves that God wants us 
to use it in our dealing with Him. He has made 
the answers to our prayers depend upon our 
belief and trust in Him. He does not promise 


The Shield 123 


to do anything for the man who does not trust 
Him; but there is almost nothing that He will 
not do for the man who believes. It is your 
faith in Christ that brings Him in between you 
and the fiery darts of the enemy, so that they 
fall blunted, quenched, and harmless at your 
feet. Not faith in your own strength, remem- 
ber, nor in your own smartness and cunning. 
These can give you no shelter from attack. The 
sooner we learn how altogether weak and 
worthless is all our own armour, the safer we 
shall be. We might as well expect a biscuit to 
stop a rifle ball as expect that any good reso- 
lutions of our own will shield us from the devil’s 
darts. But calm, strong faith in Christ will 
give us a charmed life amid all his fiery hail, 
SO: 


“Take the Name of Jesus with you, 
As a shield from every snare. 
When temptations round you gather, 
Breathe that holy Name in prayer.” 





All 
The Helmet 





XII 
The Helmet 


“And take the helmet of salvation.” 
EPHESIANS vi. 17 

The helmet of the Roman soldier was usually 
made of brass, and was often beautifully 
plumed and crested. It guarded the head from 
attack, which was a most important matter, 
for a crack on the skull may prove a most 
serious thing. It takes very little to kill a man 
if you only hit him in the right place on the 
head. While, then, the helmet was as light in 
weight as possible, it had also to be made very 
strong, and fit very closely, lest an arrow should 
pierce through a crevice and find its way to 
the brain. Besides, a man wants all his wits 
about him in a fight, and a knock on the head, 
even if it did not kill him, might make him 
do foolish things and fall into the hands of 
the enemy. A man whose head is not right 


cannot be trusted. He has to be carefully 
I27 


128 The Beauty of Strength 


watched, or he will get both himself and his 
friends into trouble. You know we have to 
put people away in asylums who are wrong in 
the head, because the head does the thinking, 
and wrong thinking leads to wrong-doing. 
This is why the devil tries to put evil thoughts 
into our minds. Because if he can only get us 
thinking about evil, we shall very soon be doing 
it. 

Now, no helmet of steel or brass, however 
close-fitting, can keep out evil thoughts. But 
they must be kept out if we are going to win 
in this fight, because thoughts presently pass 
into wishes, and to wish to do wrong, Jesus tells 
us, is the same as doing it. We must be saved 
in our thoughts. We want a salvation that will 
keep our heads from evil-thinking, and this is 
the very salvation which Jesus came to give. 
It is not enough that our feet be kept from 
running down the broad way; our thoughts 
must be kept from it, too. Sin always begins 
in thought. It has first of all to be an inten- 
tion. If you do not intend to do wrong, even 
though you may do it, it is not sin. Everything 
depends upon what you intend. Christ’s sal- 
vation is like a helmet because it keeps the head 


The Helmet 129 


sound, the judgment clear, the intentions right, 
the thoughts pure. 

Jesus Christ then clears the head as well as 
cleans the heart. Indeed, it is just wonderful 
how a clean heart makes for a clear head. Jesus 
said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God.” But perhaps you will say, 
“What has purity of heart got to do with clear- 
ness of sight?” A very great deal. Even the 
heart that you can feel beating in your breast 
has to be pure if your eyes are to see clearly. 
There is a disease of the heart to which doc- 
tors give a very long name. If I were speaking 
to you, I don’t think I should use it; but as I 
am writing, perhaps it won’t hurt if I spell it 
for you, and then you can look it up in the 
dictionary for yourselves. It is called “ulcer- 
ative endocarditis,’ and it means that on the 
membranes in the cavities of the heart there 
are little ulcers formed. Now, this is a sign of 
an impure heart, and this impurity causes cer- 
tain blood-vessels in the eyes to burst and dim 
the sight, and, if not cured, to make them 
totally blind. It would be no use in such a case, 
you see, to treat the eyes; it is the heart that 
must be made pure, and then the eyes will come 


130 The Beauty of Strength 


right. Just as truly, then, as the bodily heart, 
if impure, dulls the bodily eye, so the moral 
heart, if unclean, will dim the moral eye. Jesus 
always goes to the very root of the trouble, 
and by healing the root, He cleanses the fruit. 
That is why His salvation is so great. Just as 
a skilful doctor would deal with a man’s eye 
through his heart if he had the disease about 
which I have spoken, so Jesus deals with our 
sight and our hearing, and our thinking, too, 
through our hearts. 

Believe me, a great deal of the doubt that 
clouds people’s minds is just a mist that has 
risen up from their impure hearts. When our 
will is set to do what is right, our mind will be 
clear as to our path. Even a stupid boy will 
be brightened when he gets a new heart. When 
Jesus comes into the life, He straightens things 
up all round. He smartens the brain when He 
cleanses the heart. His salvation is an all-round 
salvation, and if you will let Him into your 
lives, He will guard the head from blunders, 
as well as the heart from sin. The cleverest 
men in the world are Christian men—that is, 
Christ’s men, men who are anxious above 
everything else to do Christ’s will. The nations 


The Helmet 131 


that are soundest in head and cleanest in heart, 
and richest in brave and noble deeds are the 
nations that are trying to please Jesus Christ. 

Have you this salvation? If not, don’t wait 
another moment. You can have it just now, 
this very instant, and just for the asking. 
With it as a helmet, you can go out among all 
the poisonous words and thoughts that the 
enemy may try to lodge in your brain. It will 
turn them all aside. With it you need not 
worry about anything. Why should you? 
Clothed from head to foot in heavenly armour, 
and on the winning side, you need be anxious 
for nothing—you need fear nothing. 


“Not all the powers of hell can fright 
A soul that walks with Christ in light. 
He walks, and cannot fall: | 
Clearly he sees, and wins his way, 
Shining unto the perfect day, 
And more than conquers all.” 





mtu 
Cyn 





XIII 
The Sword ) 








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nike Fie tak 9 rh nee ee araPantathy yak , aa 3) teal 





XIII 


The Sword 


“And take... the sword of the Spirit, which is 
the Word of God.” 


EPHESIANS vi. 17 

Now we come to the one and only weapon 
which the Christian soldier needs. Of course, 
it is a very fine thing to be clothed from head 
to foot in armour that nothing can pierce, and 
to be able to move about amid all kinds of 
danger, bearing a charmed life. Still, at the 
same time, a fellow likes to be able to hit back 
occasionally, and not let the other side have all 
the fun. It makes a fight much more interest- 
ing when you can give as well as take, when 
you can thrust as well as parry. So Paul tells 
us to “take the sword of the Spirit, which 1s 
the Word of God.” 

This is for the purpose of attack, though, of 
course, a sword is just as reliable as a means 
of defence. A skilful swordsman can so use 


his weapon as to weave about him a gleaming 
135 


136 The Beauty of Strength 


wall of steel, through which his foe finds it 
impossible to pass. Now, that which serves the 
purpose of a sword in the hand of the Christian 
is the Word of God, and like a sword it answers 
for the double purpose of defence and attack. 
If you make a companion of God’s word, it will 
lessen your temptations to sin. You know we 
make a great many temptations for ourselves, 
just through the company we keep. Books, as 
well as people, carry an atmosphere about with 
them. If you breathe the air that clings about 
them, you grow weak and open to attack. 
There are some atmospheres so impure that to 
live in them even for a short time is to run a 
very great risk. Men who work in mines, and 
in factories where the air is foul, become very 
pale and feeble, and then they easily fall vic- 
tims to disease. There is nothing like plenty 
of fresh air for keeping the body in health. 
That is one reason why God has given you a 
nose, that you might get swift warning of a 
tainted atmosphere, and keep off. I have a 
friend in Australia who cannot tell the dif- 
ference between the smell of a violet and that 
of an onion. One night in a public meeting 
that he was addressing, the acetylene gas 


The Sword 187 


escaped to such an extent that the people were 
leaving the hall. He smelt nothing but pres- 
ently felt himself somehow to be dividing into 
two different persons, one talking and the other 
standing by, and if someone had not come to 
the rescue serious results might have followed. 
It is a fine thing to have a keen scent. It isa 
protection against danger. It is an important 
thing to take care of your nose, and then it will 
take care of you. Like a sentry on outpost duty, 
it will give you danger signals of trouble ahead. 
Now, I have seen boys, and even girls, hanging 
about evil-smelling drains, and munching apples 
over an open sewer, as though there were no 
other place in the whole world in which to play. 
If ever you see a boy doing that kind of thing, 
hunt him off, because that is the hiding place of 
typhoid fever, diphtheria, and all the black 
brotherhood of disease and death. 

Now, what a bad drain is to the bodily 
health, a bad book is to the health of the soul. 
A bad book is the word of Satan, and breathes 
out an air of fatal sickness wherever it goes. 
But God’s Word is like a fresh breeze from the 
sea, or the sweet breath of the meadow-land 
when it is strewn with new-mown hay, or the 


138 The Beauty of Strength 


bracing air of the mountains laden with the 
scent of fragrant pines. Keep in the fresh air 
of God’s Word, and you will be safe from a 
thousand dangers that befall the people who 
breathe the poisoned air of bad and worthless 
books.. The more you read the Bible, the more 
you'll get to love it, and the more you love it, 
the more you'll grow like it, for we always 
become like the thing we love. This very love 
for what is pure and good will put a wall of 
defence around you. It will be like a flaming 
sword turning every way, and guarding your 
tree of life. 

But not only will the word of God be a means 
of defence to you, it will be also a weapon of 
attack. Satan has very little chance with the 
man who is skilful in the use of God’s Word. 
If you will only store your memories with the 
Scriptures, then whenever an impure thought 
of the enemy tries to break through the lines 
of your defence, the pure Word of God will 
leap out like a flashing blade of steel and put it 
to flight. Get as much of the Bible as you can 
off by heart, and every text will be like a two- 
edged sword. There is nothing that makes the 
Devil fall back so quickly and with such con- 


The Sword 139 


fusion as the Word of God. This was the only 
weapon that Jesus used in his fierce conflict with 
the enemy, and it was quite sufficient. If you 
read the story of the Temptation in the wilder- 
ness you will see that Jesus met every word of 
Satan with the Word of God. He just flashed 
out texts of Scripture from the scabbard of 
his memory till, wounded and defeated, the devil 
limped off and owned Him conqueror. Don’t 
try to meet temptation with any sword of your 
own making. This is the reason why we are 
so often defeated. We try some word of our 
own, some wooden sword of human manufac- 
ture, which only breaks in our hand and puts 
us at the mercy of our foe. Never try your 
words on the devil. There is nothing he de- 
lights in more, than to get us to talk things 
over with him, for we are no match for him 
in argument. He turns our words aside as 
though they were but cardboard blades; but the 
sword of the Spirit he cannot withstand. Get 
a firm grip, then, of this sword, and, clothed 
from head to foot in heavenly armour, you will 
be able to “stand in the evil day, and having 
done all to stand.” 

















XIV 
Praying 


“Praying always with all prayer.” 
EPHESIANS vi. 18 

We have been taking the armour piece by 
piece, and I have tried to show you what each 
piece means. Let us suppose now that you have 
done what Paul advises, that you have put it all 
on, so that you are now clothed from head to 
foot in armour easy to carry and hard to pierce. 
Is that all you need, and can you go out now 
and not only stand your own ground, but drive 
the enemy from his? Paul does not think so, 
and from what he goes on to say, it is very 
clear that we are not sent out to independent 
fighting. God does not intend that we shall 
go out “on our own,” as though He had done 
everything He was going to do for us, and that 
now we must look after ourselves, fighting our 
battles and winning our victories or sustaining 
our defeats uncared for and alone. Nothing 


of the kind. All through the struggle—and it 
143 


144 The Beauty of Strength 


will be life-long—we are to be in constant com- 
munication with headquarters, corresponding 
with our Captain, asking for and receiving in- 
structions and support. This is what Paul 
means when he says: “praying always with all 
prayer.” Prayer is asking for what we need, 
and whatever else you may be doubtful about, 
of this you may be certain, that you can al- 
ways get God*to listen to you at a moment’s 
notice. He is always at call. You need only 
whisper, and He will hear. Indeed, there will 
be times when you cannot even whisper but the 
starting tear will become a prayer and bring 
Him to your side. Some of you, perhaps, have 
the telephone laid on to your house. Suppose 
you want to speak to your father at his office. 
Of course, you ring up. But, then, he might 
be engaged with someone else, and too busy to 
speak to you. Or he might have gone out for 
an hour. Or, as sometimes happens, something 
may have gone wrong with the telephone wire, 
so that you cannot get your message through. 
Now, nothing like this can ever happen with 
your prayers. Prayer is the most wonderful 
telephone in the world. It has been in use for 
thousands of years, and though millions of 


Praying 145 
people have used it, it has never got out of 
repair. You have never to ask, “Are you 
there?’ when you go to the prayer telephone. 
God is always there. He is never so busy that 
He cannot listen to you and answer your 
prayer. You have never to ring up the Ex- 
change and ask to be “put on” to God. You 
are always on, and nobody—not even an arch- 
angel—can “ring you off.” O the wonder of 
it all! that men and women and little children, 
everywhere and always, can speak into the very 
ear of God, telling Him all they need, and 
knowing that for Christ’s sake He will answer 
their prayer. This is one of the sweetest and 
most beautiful truths in the whole world, and 
that we cannot understand how it works must 
not keep us from using it. How many among 
the tens of thousands who use the telephone un- 
derstand how their voices are carried for hun- 
dreds of miles along a wire? Yet no one allows 
his ignorance of how it works to keep him from 
using the instrument when required. So never 
you mind how God answers prayer. The prin- 
cipal thing to know and remember is that He 
does answer it, and all you have to do is just 
to tell Him what you need and wait His time. 


146 The Beauty of Strength 


Of course, I don’t mean to say that God will 
give you everything you ask for. He loves you 
too well to do that, and His love is shown just 
as much in the things He denies you as in those 
He gives. But you just go on asking as usual, 
and leave Him to sort out your prayers. You 
won’t know what is best for you sometimes, but 
He will, and you may safely trust Him to do 
the very best He can for you; and remember 
there are never any mistakes made at Head- 
quarters. Even if God does not give you the 
thing you asked for and which you thought 
would be good, He will give you something 
else which He knows will be a great deal better. 
Just pray about everything, however small. 
Bring God into every part of your life, home, 
and school, lessons and play, and He will bless 
and brighten them all. 

Paul says, “Praying with all prayer.” Now, 
by “all prayer” he means every kind of prayer. 
Of course, you know that you ought to have 
stated and regular times for prayer, just as you 
have for your meals. Daniel prayed “three 
times a day”—morning, noon, and night. They 
were his stated times with which he allowed 
nothing to interfere, even when he was Prime 


bd 


Praying 147 


Minister of one of the greatest empires in the 
world. But Daniel often prayed between times 
as well. You know that breakfast, dinner, and 
supper do not prevent you from having some 
refreshment between meals. You can always 
manage a banana or an apple at recess time in 
the morning, and a good slice of bread and jam 
at four in the afternoon, to say nothing of 
what you have before breakfast and what you 
take before going to bed. I might change the 
text to make it read, “Feeding always with all 
kinds of food,” and it would be true of certain 
boys I know. Every chance of something to 
eat that offers they take. Now, that’s how to 
pray. Stated times, between times, any time, 
every time. Whenever you feel your heart get- 
ting hungry for God; whenever you feel faint 
in spirit and want refreshing ; whenever you are 
sad and want cheering up, just “ask and receive 
that your joy may be full.” 

Now, prayer is sometimes called an “exer- 
cise.” It is a gymnastic for the soul. You 
know what physical drill is, and how it 
strengthens and toughens the muscles, making 
them hardy and able to endure. Well, prayer 
is spiritual drill, and does for the soul what the 


148 The Beauty of Strength 


other drill does for the body. It is not always 
an easy thing to pray. Indeed, sometimes it is 
very difficult, and, strange to say, when we need 
to pray most we often want to pray least. You 
will have to call up all your power of will some- 
times to keep your soul engaged and your mind 
fixed on the business. Prayer with the mind 
wandering all over the place and thinking of 
something else “all the time is a useless thing. 
Remember that what you get out of your 
prayers in the way of comfort and grace to help 
in time of need will depend on what you put into 
them in the way of earnestness. You see, if 
God gave you an answer to a prayer when you 
were not in earnest and did not care whether 
you got it or not, you would not value it when 
it came, and it would do you no good. Unless 
you really feel the need of the thing you ask 
for, you won’t get it. Suppose that some aiter- 
noon, after school, you ask your mother for 
something to eat, and because she happens to 
be busy and unable to attend to you at the mo- 
ment, you drop your books and stroll off for 
a game of football. Do you think your mother 
will come chasing you round with a slice? Not 
much! But why? Because she knows very 


Praying 149 
well that if you are really hungry you will stand 
by and bother her till you get it, and if you are 
not hungry enough to stay till she gives it to 
you, you can very well wait till supper. Now, 
real prayer is the cry of a hungry soul for 
food, asking and waiting to be served. When 
we are really hungry and thirsty for the thing 
we ask in prayer, the answer will not be far 
away nor long in coming. Learn how to pray. 
Get into practice at once. It is like everything 
else; you can get “out of form” through neglect ; 
but if you will only practice, you will become 
expert. It is only through prayer that you can 
become “‘strong in the Lord and in the power 
of His might.” It is only through prayer that 
you can either win or wear the armour, and 
thus be able to “withstand in the evil day, and 
having done all to stand.” 





AV 
W atching 





XV 


Watching 


“Watching thereunto with all perseverance.” 


EPHESIANS vi. 18 


Last time we were speaking about prayer and 
all the wonderful things that God will do for 
us if we will but ask Him. There are some 
things, however, that God will not do for 
us, but which we must do for ourselves, and 
one of these is “watching.” Of course, you 
know how important it is in battle that some- 
one should be always on the lookout. An army 
always has its sentries posted. All night long, 
as well as all day, they have to pace to and 
fro with wakeful, watchful eyes, and with ears 
keen to catch the softest tread, challenging 
every footfall and demanding the password at 
every approach, thus guarding the camp from 
surprise. 

Now, as I have reminded you frequently 


during these talks, we are at war, and it is be- 
153 


154 The Beauty of Strength 


cause our enemy is so skilful in planning sur- 
prises that we must be always on the alert. We 
must be like soldiers on sentry—never taking 
it easy. Of course, in ordinary sentry work, 
the soldier is not always on duty; he is re- 
lieved by another taking his place, and then he 
can go back to his tent and sleep. But there is 
no relief from duty in our battle with Satan. 
Ours is a life-long sentry. We must always be 
on guard—always watching against attack. 
This is the meaning of “Perseverance” and it 
is the only time this word occurs in the Scrip- 
tures. It means unwearying constancy. Did 
you ever see a sentry-box? If so, you will have 
noticed that when the sentry is in, he touches 
the walls on all sides. It just about fits him. 
There are no carpets or rugs about, no sofas 
or easy chairs; there is no room for them; in- 
deed, unless the sentry stands up straight there 
is not room for him! If he tried to lie down 
he could not get himself all in. Now, all this 
want of comfort in the arrangement of a sen- 
try-box is intentional. The sentry must not 
take it easy; he must not be made too com- 
fortable, lest he fall asleep, and the enemy get 
within the lines. The people to whom Paul was: 


Watching 155 


writing understood all about this, for the Ro- 
man guards or sentries were familiar to people 
everywhere throughout the known world. 
They were magnificent fellows, splendidly 
trained, and loving duty more than life. I once 
saw a wonderful piece of statuary called the 
“Flight from Pompeii.” The statue itself is a 
lovely piece of work and shows a man with his 
wite and little baby hurrying from the doomed 
city during an eruption of Vesuvius. But when 
you have looked at that, you will find all round 
the pedestal, sculptures of different scenes dur- 
ing that awful time, and one of these repre- 
sents a sturdy Roman guard standing at the 
city gate, unmoved and unmovable, amid the 
sulphurous death. Although crowds of people 
are hurrying past him, seeking to save them- 
selves and their belongings, he stands firm as 
a rock, choosing rather to die at his post than 
purchase his life at the cost of his honor and 
his oath. 

It was men of this sort that Paul was meet- 
ing and talking to every day, and many a story 
of eventful outpost duty would they tell him 
during the long hours in which they were keep- 
ing guard. Even if Paul had not thought much 


156 The Beauty of Strength 


about the importance of wakeful watching be- 
fore, these stories of the camp would make him 
think that if against foes that could be seen 
and handled, it was thus necessary to be always 
on guard, how much greater was the need when 
the enemy could be neither heard nor seen. 
Now, I think you will find that most of the 
sins we commit arise from our being off guard. 
It is not that we sit down and think it over 
first and then deliberately do what is wrong; 
we rather get surprised into it through un- 
watchfulness. The Greek word for “watch” 
which Paul uses has three meanings. First 
of all it means to “wake up from sleep.” You 
know how hard this is sometimes, especially on 
dark wintry mornings when the wind is howl- 
ing round the house and the rain is beating 
against the window of your room. How many 
times have you to be called on a morning like 
that? How often do you answer, “Y-e-s,” 
turning over in your sleep without waking up 
at all? Now, Paul does not tell us to turn over 
in our sleep, but to wake right up, to throw 
off sleep, to open our eyes. This is what the 
word “watch” means—to cast off sleep and have 
done with it. But even that is not enough. 


Watching 157 


Paul’s* word means not only ‘wake up!” but 
“get up!’ You know if you don’t get up at 
once when you wake, the bed feels so “comfy” 
that it holds you down, and the longer you stay, 
the longer you want to. If you were to walk 
through a certain college that I know you would 
not find a single bedroom door without one or 
two cracked panels. They have been whanged 
and banged of a morning so often, to rouse up 
sleepy boys, that they have all been split. Of 
course, at the beginning of the year, after the 
long vacation, the bell would wake everybody, 
but it is just wonderful what you can get used 
to in the way of noise, and still sleep on. And 
so it always came to pass that in about a fort- 
night nobody heard the bell at all, or if they 
did, it was so mixed up in their dreams that 
it did not disturb them. Then for the rest of 
the term the master on duty, with a towel 
wrapped round his fist would go from room to 
room, pounding the panels of the doors till he 
got a satisfactory answer; and even then some 
fellows would come tumbling down to prayers, 
buttoning up their vests or putting on their 
collars as they came, and taking three steps of 
the stairs at a time. 


158 The Beauty of Strength 


The great thing is to get up at once when 
you wake. It never gets easier. The more you 
think about it, especially if you have to take 
a cold shower, the harder it is to get out. I 
would advise you, when you ought to get up, 
and can’t make up your mind for the spring, 
just to think of sleep as a great octopus waiting 
to throw his long tentacles round you, that he 
may draw you down, down, down, and drown 
you in the sea of forgetfulness. This will shake 
you up and wake you up, and make you jump 
for bare life; then, once you are out of bed, the 
spell will be broken, so that you will not want 
to go back to bed even if you have the chance. 
But even yet we have not got all the meaning 
out of Paul’s word “watch.” It means not only 
“wake up,” and “get up,” but “look around!’ 
“Be on guard!’ Have all your wits about 
you!” The wisdom of all this is seen from the 
fact that your enemy is so cunning. Paul 
speaks in this very chapter about the “wiles of 
the devil.” This means “tricks.” Now, you 
know that in playing a game sometimes there 
are certain tricks that you have to watch 
against, or else the other side may gain an un- 
fair advantage. But in a game you can ap- 


Watching 159 


peal to the umpire, and insist on fair play, and 
if you don’t get it, you can withdraw from the 
game and decline to play. But in this struggle 
with Satan and his forces you have no choice. 
Even though he cheats every time and takes all 
sorts of mean advantages, you must fight, and 
against all he knows. If long practice in un- 
fairness and deceit have anything to do with 
knowing how to do it, then by this time the 
devil must be an expert sneak. Anyhow, he is 
a tricky foe, and takes us unawares if he can, 
so that we need to be always on the alert, watch- 
ful, wakeful, prepared, lest coming suddenly he 
sweep us off our feet and take us captive at his 
will. 

Now, it is not that watching of itself will 
save us, but that by watching we shall get warn- 
ing of the danger and know exactly when and 
what to ask for in our prayers. You see, we 
are not told to watch unto fighting, but unto 
“prayer.” You know that the first business of 
a sentry when he observes the enemy stealing 
up to his lines is not to fight the foe himself, 
but to alarm and fall back upon the “picket,” 
that is, a body of the troops who are to be al- 
ways ready in case of surprise. He does not, 


160 The Beauty of Strength 


unless absolutely forced to it, engage the enemy 
himself. When the picket is alarmed then the 
“support” is roused. This is a body of the 
soldiers who may go to sleep, but are all dressed 
and ready for action at a moment’s notice when 
roused. By this time the “reserves” have got 
shaken up, and instead of surprising a sleeping 
camp, the enemy discover that they have to deal 
with a wide-awake army, eager for the fray. 
Now, just as the sentry does not engage the 
enemy himself, but gives the alarm which is 
really a prayer for help, so with us, when stand- 
ing guard we feel the danger near, it 1s not our 
business to fight single-handed with the foe, but 
to call upon the forces which are always at our 
back and ready to come at our call. This is 
“watching unto prayer.” 

Wake up! That is your business. When you 
are thoroughly roused, watchful, and waiting 
to know and do your duty, you will see it plain 
and clear. ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
Christ shall give you light.” Waking up and 
going round in the dark is bad business. When 
the dog barks in the middle of the night, and 
you thing someone is prowling round the house, 
you grope about to find the electric switch, or 


Watching 161 


the matches if you happen to live in the country. 
But anyone who has done this will know what 
a wonderful time you can have. You seem to 
be in a furniture shop. There are so many 
things to come against and to tumble over. You 
never seem to be through with them. You 
never thought there were so many things in the 
room before. Then when you are quite sure 
you are in front of the door, you walk straight 
into the fireplace, or fetch up with your big toe 
against a chair, while your nose feels for the 
mantelpiece in such unseemly haste that you see 
a shower of dancing stars. All this is most 
exhausting, and it all comes of waking up and 
getting up in the dark. Now, nothing like this 
can happen to you if you will obey Paul’s word 
of command. Just you try; rouse yourselves up, 
and Christ will give you such light and wisdom 
that you will never be in doubt about the next 
step and never be surprised into sin. ‘Watch, 
therefore, and pray, lest ye enter into tempta- 
tion.” 
“Principalities and powers 
Mustering their unseen array, 


Wait for thy unguarded hours— 
Watch and pray. 


162 


The Beauty of Strength 


“Gird thy heavenly armour on, 
Wear it ever night and day; 
Ambushed lies the evil one— 
Watch and pray.” 


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